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THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 




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55. 



THE STORY OF 
THE CATACOMBS 



Florence Edythe Blake-Hedges 



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Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham 
New York: Eaton and Mains 



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Copyright, 1909, 
By Jennings and Gbaham 



LIBRARY of C'NGRESS 
Two C'^fi' f? vceivecl 

APR 9 1909 

Copyru'ii -'•try , 
CLASS ^^— '^Ac- No. 

^ 3 J„5 S,-3. 



To 

MoLLiE Byer Keller, 

whose companionship and aid 

in collecting data helped 

make possible this 

little volume. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction, ----- 9 

"A Toast to the Arch^ologist," 15 

A Procession along the Appian 

Way, 19 

A Prisoner's Fate, - . . 28 

The Family Tomb, - - - - 39 

" After Nineteen Centuries," - 45 

Life, Worship, Martyrdom in the 

Catacombs, - - - - 82 

Offices and Customs of the 

Ancient Church, - - - 91 

The First Christian Art, - - 102 



INTRODUCTION 

" Were not the eye itself a sun, 

No sun for it would ever shine : 
By nothing godlike could the heart be -won. 
Were not the heart of man divine." 

THE mystery involved within a mir- 
acle has ever appealed to mankind. 
It comes from the divine, and di- 
rectly appeals to the divine as found in the 
human. The greatest mystery of miracle 
ever brought within the cycle of time was not 
the marvelous advent of the Lord Christ 
Himself, here, but the rapid propagation of 
the mighty force He set moving. Here was 
a religion set up by an humble, unpreten- 
tious worker amid a multitude of doctrines 
old as man was old; amid creeds sheltered 
and nourished by the powers of State and 
shaped by human philosophies, such as man 
has not reasoned out since ; amid creeds that 

9 



INTRODUCTION 

promised temporal gain and answered the 
demands of the aesthetic or appealed to the 
lusts of the flesh. Creeds! The world was 
full of creeds, and yet here came another, 
whose perpetrator was born into a carpen- 
ter's family, and meekly walked and talked 
back and forth over a little bit of territory, 
until it all ended one dark day on Calvary's 
cross in deepest ignominy. All ended — 
but for three days — and then the Creator's 
highest effort, the miracle of the resur- 
rection, was wrought, its radiant hope in 
strangest contrast to the misery of despair 
dying on the hill crest. In such as this creed 
all the belief, all the thought of the age was 
contradicted by this "Do unto others as 
you would have them do unto you." Amidst 
the glory of many gods there was set up the 
Luminate One, whose penetrating rays filled 
earth's remotest corners and shone across 
the path of all humanity, until the onward 
rushing train of civilization struck the 
tunnel of the Dark Ages. Had this con- 

10 



INTRODUCTION 

stellar Sun forever set in the black night of 
those centuries? Even all that its brilliance 
had brought forth seemed swallowed up and 
forgotten. A hollow form of old worship 
was retained, and not everywhere was the 
faint cry heard for "Licht, mehr Licht!" 
But miracles never cease, for suddenly that 
long dark tunnel ended in the glory of Sun- 
shine flooding all the valleys and the moun- 
tain tops of old earth, and the miracle of 
Christianity was fulfilled unto all time to 
come. 

It was only a little while after the 
tragedy of the Tomb had been averted that 
unconscious witnesses left behind them 
proof that can not be denied or stamped out, 
however much the dubious ones may choose 
to discard sacred history. Pliny writes that 
the Governor of Bithynia complained to 
Trajan that persons of every age and both 
sexes embraced the pernicious faith. Ter- 
tuUian boasted that in the second century 
in Carthage one-tenth of the population 

11 



INTRODUCTION 

were Christians, including the senatorial 
rank. The cumulative power and the quick- 
ening spread of Christianity seem nothing 
short of miraculous when we consider the 
heathen world, at that moment in its worst 
condition, giving birth to such an active 
body, to be nursed by apostles who went 
out as "Lambs among wolves." In the lan- 
guage of an historian, "The heart of the 
Roman Empire under the Caesars was a 
cesspool of stagnant waters. . . . Reduced 
as it was to torpor, under the nightmare of 
an absolutism which it neither could or 
would shake off, the Roman world sought 
its solace in superstition, in sensuality, or in 
stoicism. The chill and death from these 
was reflected in all." The reason for this 
miracle of Christianity? It is found only 
in the divine. The heart of man was won 
by the Godlike as one innovating power 
after another expanded and took root. One 
of the last commands that issued from the 
cross, "Behold thy mother!" (John xix, 27) 

12 



INTRODUCTION 

has had especial significance in the evangel- 
ization of the world, for it meant so much 
to the women, especially those of the East. 
Man must now have especial care over 
womankind, marriage was sanctified as 
never before, and a wife's common faith 
and common hope, with that of her hus- 
band, raised her to an equality of sex. 

The Christian religion planted its might- 
iest buttress in the home, for the nations are 
builded with that unit. Each Christian 
home is an evidence of that miracle, and 
side by side with this daily evidence stands 
that mighty testimony of its earliest achieve- 
ments, the Scriptures, the Church, and 
the Catacombs at Rome. 



13 



"A TOAST TO THE ARCH^OLO- 

GIST' 

TO the patient, careful archaeologist 
the world owes its correction of 
false notions as to supposed cus- 
toms, erroneous chronology, and unknown 
life. Archaeology, instead of being dead 
and dry as some would suppose, is of most 
vital interest for its vital connection with the 
past; scientists will describe the inhabitants 
and environments of some far-off age from 
the single bone of an animal, so the archae- 
ologist will give us the story of lives, man- 
ners, and customs from his little store of 
relics. The rather recent unearthing of 
Pithom (Ex. i, 11), the remains of Stone- 
henge, or the relics of the Catacombs, are 
all unconscious witnesses to the facts of his- 
tory, sacred or profane. As one has said: 
"Christian writings might be forgeries, or 
they might be interpolated, but Christian 

15 



A TOAST 

monuments could not well be either. Chris- 
tianity, therefore, has no more anomalies, 
contradictions, or impossibilities than nature 
itself has; it is rather a higher law of God, 
of which nature is but the symbol." So in 
this present day of manifold ideas and cus- 
toms, when even the Church of Christ is riot- 
ing in division of dogmas and creeds, it is 
with more than usual interest we turn to the 
evidences of the first Christian centuries, and 
inquire into the customs and beliefs of the 
ancient Church before it was controlled bv 
governmental powers. Who was this Jesus 
of Nazareth, and what His truths of such 
absolute authority established by His im- 
mediate followers in the primitive Church? 
Slight investigation will prove that although 
the Roman Church has been suffered to 
claim identity in discipline and doctrine 
with that evidenced in the early Church, yet 
there is more striking similarity between 
those practices of the early apostles and that 
of our Reformed or Protestant faith. 

16 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 



A PROCESSION ALONG THE 
APPIAN WAY 

CONQUERING heroes loved that 
road; the Roman citizens loved it; 
representatives of all nations, bar- 
baric or civilized, seeing it for the first time 
as they approached the "Mistress of the 
World," looked upon it in wonder, envy, 
and admiration. Slaves were delighted if 
the train of master or mistress led thither, 
for the Appian Way was queen of roads. 
Three hundred and twelve years before the 
star of Bethlehem appeared this road had 
been laid down, with paving stones stretch- 
ing like a ribbon from the city gates, far 
across the Campagna, away over the moun- 
tains, and down to the southern shores of 
Latium, all at the instigation of that illus- 
trious patrician Sabine, Appius Claudius 
the Blind. To-day the world-famed Via 

19 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

Appia is still the most celebrated road 
leading out of Rome, the most interesting 
in Pagan and Christian history. 

Many noble processions have trod its 
hard, smooth bed, and perchance in years 
to come some famous march, as oft before, 
will steal over that sacred ground and again 
enter the Eternal City. Be that as it may, 
history never has nor never will produce 
the like of a procession that moved in such 
simplicity, yet fraught with such power, as 
the one that could be seen approaching the 
world's center nearly two thousand years 
ago, and about four hundred years after its 
path had been laid down. Earth's greatest 
emperors had driven over that same way 
in most splendid state; queens and rulers, 
representing mighty powers adjacent to 
Latium, had been led along this path in a 
gorgeous captivity, and their power had 
crumbled as the dust beneath their feet. 

On a certain day the sun shone down 
with all the warmth of an Italian spring 

20 



ALONG THE APPIAN WAY 

on a little band who had come a long jour- 
ney, with many vicissitudes, in order to hold 
to the letter of the law when so respected a 
personage as a Roman citizen had ap- 
pealed to Csesar. From far Jerusalem they 
had started many months ago, where the 
prisoner had been arrested on the grievous 
charge of disturbing the pubhc peace and 
creating dissenting religious factions. 
There the Roman Governor who had 
shielded him from the mob had failed to 
discover his guilt. Two years he had been 
imprisoned in Caesarea, appearing before 
Felix, then Festus and Agrippa, whence 
we read those memorable words, "Almost 
thou persuadest me to be a Christian," and 
Agrippa also said unto Festus, "This man 
might have been set at liberty if he had not 
appealed unto Csesar." Then he took ship, 
and throughout that perilous voyage he 
alone was calm and undisturbed. Wrecked 
on the island of Malta for three months, the 
missionary spirit never forsook him for 

21 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

an hour, and he there built an altar to the 
sublime faith. Faith! A faith that en- 
wraps the earth and all the world; a faith 
that is chimed in a song by the eternal music 
of the spheres; a faith that uplifts all the 
hours of life and will wipe all sorrow and 
sighing away. 

Paul of Tarsus spoke of faith in 
richest, fullest words that will go ringing 
in and out the old and new periods of all 
time, and he was the prisoner plodding the 
Appian Way. Ponderous thoughts weighed 
his mind; it had been his cherished desire to 
plant this faith in the strange, mixed soil 
of Rome — Rome — a thousand thoughts 
flitted by at the name. Had Paul pictured 
Rome as it actually was ? Or could any one 
picture so great an enigma until they had 
in reality seen it? Who could describe the 
dying Paganism, the strange and corrupt 
creeds of emperors and people; of Stoics, 
Epicureans, Gnostics, and so-called philoso- 
phers; "the black immorality of priests and 

22 



ALONG THE APPIAN WAY 

their lax congregations; the barbarian buf- 
foonery of emperor, and shameless revelry 
of senators and patricians; the awful fate 
of slaves and bondsmen? A people was 
Rome about to inaugurate the rule of a 
'Beast,' who would welter in innocent blood- 
shed, and play the revolting game of world 
ruler and vilest criminal." Could Paul 
have foreseen such a Rome as this, would 
he have turned back in hopeless despair? 
Of much of it he must have known, for he 
most fervently hoped to reach it and tell of 
rest and peace for the weary and heavy- 
laden. 

Perchance, though his heart was bur- 
dened with this sorrow for humanity, Paul 
yet looked about him as the beauties of Italy 
and the glories of the Appian Way un- 
folded themselves before him. They were 
now about forty miles from the city, at the 
little village of Appii Forum, and a few 
people greatly surprise the stolid Roman 
Centurion bj^ approaching and joining his 

23 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

little company. Had they known his pris- 
oner before? No; most of them had not, 
but the Centurion saw among them a com- 
mon band of love and sympathy, such as he 
had hardly thought existed in this cold 
world, even among kinsmen. What was 
this religion? Could it make him so happy? 
He had sought happiness in all the pleas- 
ures of life, and truly it was not to be found. 
How Paul's face brightened, how his step 
quickened, as he hastened to embrace these 
and kiss them in the name of the Master! 
On they walked and talked, paying little 
heed to "the conflux issuing forth or enter- 
ing in the busy metropolis." Yet, methinks, 
Paul took sharp notice of it all and weighed 
possibilities. Then again his gaze wandered 
over to the misty Alban hills and over the 
rich Campagna, stretching away to the 
horizon and up to the very walls of the city. 
On every side were rich villas, structures of 
marble surrounded by handsome grounds, 
scarcely a vestige of which remains to-day 
on those fields. 24 



ALONG THE APPIAN WAY 

Ten miles out of the city, at the "Three 
Taverns," their party had been augmented 
by other friends who had come out to meet 
the traveler. The soldiers thought it all so 
strange that a man who had never been in 
Rome should have so many friends there. 
They knew that he was the priest for a new 
religion that had started a little while ago 
in Judea, and they wondered how its sup- 
porters were already here in such numbers. 

Far in the distance Paul of Tarsus first 
began to discern Rome, a mass of buildings 
raised on seven hills, with no church spires, 
and no Pantheon swung in mid-air as a 
dome to Christendom's biggest edifice. But 
there were other objects nearer to catch the 
eye of the travelers. 

The noble Romans, in their veneration 
for this ancient Via Appia, had chosen to 
set up along its roadway the tombs of their 
most respected citizens, sepulchers of marble 
or flat Roman bricks veneered with marble, 
and with carved decorations; and to-day 

25 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

there is to be seen along this most historical 
road of early civilization the decaying mon- 
uments and tombs of those whose names 
have long since filled the pages of history, 
such as the Scipios and the Julian gens, to 
which belonged Julius, the prasf ect in charge 
of St. Paul. Then the tomb of Cecilia Me- 
tella, a huge, round, tower-like mass of 
marble and much carving of scenes and fig- 
ures, since then having served both as a 
prison and fortress, is now but a pile of 
mutilated bricks, stripped bare long ago 
by the hand of ruthless popes for selfish 
schemes. Strange coincidence, that by the 
side of these there should be chosen another 
burial place of such dimensions as to seem 
incredible and of such a nature as to far 
exceed the interest centered in any other. 

Coming very near the city, the party 
were now passing by ground just beyond 
the tomb of Cecilia Metella, that was to 
hold beneath its surface the largest and 
most wonderful family burying-place of 

26 



ALONG THE APPIAN WAY 

any ever to be built or excavated in the 
world. The kingly villas were to vanish on 
that magic tapis; marbles were to mix their 
dust with those now playing in the drama 
of life, and, more than all these, in the cen- 
turies and archives of history there was to 
rise that impenetrably deep, inscrutably 
mysterious witness of a power that forever 
clings about the sepulcher of that vast 
God's Acre. Could Paul have foreseen the 
extent of the tombs that his family was to 
occupy, could he have known the spread of 
that family throughout the earth — would 
his walk along the Appian Way have been 
one of greater interest or impetus to him 
than it was? 

Straight to the Forum they lead him, 
just in front of the palaces of the Caesars', 
to the very center of the world's power and 
magnificence, and there he was deliverd over 
to the prsef ect of the high Prsetorian guard, 
who had charge over the emperor's pris- 
oners. 

27 



A PRISONER'S FATE 

C^SAR only held court for pris- 
oners' pleadings when it was most 
urgent, and frequently, if enemies 
of the prisoner so desired, the unfortunate 
one's trial could be easily put oiF or pro- 
longed, and the victim could chafe in his 
chains upon the merest pretext. 

It chanced that Paul came to wait some 
time before given audience, and, having 
gained the respect and confidence of his 
gaolers (even there is reason to believe that 
Julius adopted the new faith) , he was given 
the highest leniency in the law. This could 
not mean freedom from being continually 
chained to a guardsman, but it meant so 
much that he was allowed to hire a house 
and dwell therein among his friends with 
all social privileges for two years, or until 

28 



A PRISONER'S FATE 

the time of his first trial, when he again 
became a free man. This house where 
"Paul called the chief of the Jews together" 
may still be seen down by the Tiber, in an 
obscure part of the city, near the quarter 
of the Jews. 

These two years of the prisoner's 
cramped activity in his own hired house 
were two of the most important years in 
the history of Christianity, only exceeded 
in their wealth and values by the three 
crowded ministerial years of the Lord Him- 
self. Now one man was to Christianize all 
Europe, and he set about the stupendous 
task by remaining in one house, talking and 
preaching to chance comers, and gradually 
winning the guards who were in turn 
chained at his side. The days passed, and 
the prisoner could only guess at the results 
of his efforts. But already the Romans, 
from the wealthiest down to their slaves, 
were talking of the new sect and its rapid 
increase. Everywhere in the homes, even in 

29 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

the household of the great Caesar, this 
mighty power leveled those of high and low 
degree and made bondsmen and freemen 
alike. 

Probably we shall never know just how 
or when Christianity was carried to the 
shores of Latium, but the condition of the 
soldier and the slave was fertile soil for its 
rapid propagation. All Rome was crowded 
with slaves. The aristocrat owned them, 
not by tens, but by hundreds, a thousand 
or more belonging to one household. In- 
surrection was only kept in check by an 
iron law, for a slave could be beaten, tor- 
tured, mutilated, and put to death at the 
mere pleasure of his lordly master. Thus 
in the planting of Christianity we are given 
to understand that: "From the Roman aris- 
tocracy Paul had little to fear and little 
to expect. Their whole life, physical, 
moral, intellectual, moved on a diiferent 
plane from his. It was from the masses 
of the populace that he mainly hoped for 

30 



A PRISONER'S FATE 

converts from the Gentiles, and it was from 
the Jews on the one hand and the emperor 
on the other that he had most to dread. 
The story of early Christianity is a story 
of many persecutions, days rife in the shed- 
ding of innocent blood." However, it was 
within a decade after Paul first entered 
Rome by the Appian Way that the Chris- 
tians grew into a number far beyond his 
most sanguine expectations, a large body of 
worshipers having its ramifications pene- 
trating into all strata of human society, and 
acting as that bit of leaven which grew and 
gave a new life to the whole. 

Christianity has come to rule and reign, 
and to defy all attempts at annihilation 
perpetrated by emperors or earthly powers. 

The day of Paul's trial came, and this 

Roman citizen, one of the world's ablest of 

lawyers, pleaded his own case, told of the 

mightiness of his God, and Caesar trembled 

on his throne. The charges were almost a 

farce; there was no reason for further im- 
3 31 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

prisonment of a man who simply preached 
a new rehgion. He should be free, and he 
was. 

Thereupon Paul left Rome to build 
Churches elsewhere, and the months length- 
ened into years before he returned to find a 
Csesar, the beast of all men, upon the 
throne. 

There stood in the Forum, just below 
the palace, the Golden Milestone, from 
which "the roads radiated in all directions 
to the remotest verge of civilization," and 
messages and letters were sent along these 
celebrated Roman roads from post to post, 
with delivery established by the govern- 
ment. But now other letters, not differing 
in outward appearance from the ordinary 
ones, were sent over these roads, and they 
contained commands more powerful than 
the dispatches of Nero, commands that force 
rulers and States to-day, and they were 
^vritten by this selfsame Paul. Meanwhile 
Paul preached and exhorted, and his con- 

32 



A PRISONER'S FATE 

verts multiplied with astonishing rapidity. 
We are told that "the name which really de- 
fined them, in which they gloried, was the 
name of Christian." 

"I AM A Christian^'* was a bond which 
they acknowledged among each other as 
a claim to any amount of mutual succor 
and sacrifice all over the world from Syria 
to Britain. "I am a Christian," was a con- 
fession they would maintain through any 
amount of torture unto death. An his- 
torian has said that "history has but few 
stranger contrasts than when it shows us 
Paul preaching Christ under the walls of 
Nero's palace." Some of the depraved 
servants of the palace were redeemed, and 
how deep their degradation was we know 
from authentic records, whose pages are 
polluted with details no writer in the lan- 
guage of Christendom dare repeat. Nero 
and the members of his household were in- 
struments of vices so monstrous and so un- 
natural that they shocked even the men of 

33 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

that generation, steeped as it was in every 
species of obscenity. Already, at the age 
of twenty-five, Nero had murdered his in- 
nocent wife and brother, and had dyed his 
hands in the blood of his mother ; then mar- 
ried that most shameless of all women, his 
mistress, Poppea. In one of his wild, 
beastly orgies he withdrew outside the city 
of Rome, ordered it set on fire, then watched 
and sang through the conflagration in 
fiendish glee. A most pleasing thought oc- 
curred to this monster; he would attach the 
blame of this appalling disaster upon the 
Christians. In their strange teachings they 
had often threatened the destruction, not of 
the city only, but of the whole world, espe- 
cially by fire. Therefore it was at least 
conceivable that they themselves should 
have set fire to Rome, so that when Nero 
looked for a scapegoat upon which to lay 
the disaster of his own burning of the cap- 
ital he found it as easy as it was convenient 
to place all blame upon these offending per- 

34 



A PRISONER'S FATE 

sons. Thereafter all Christians were to be 
persecuted. They were torn in the arena by 
wild beasts ; they were covered with the skins 
of wild animals and set upon by ravishing 
dogs; they were wrapped in inflammable 
materials and burned as torches, several 
thousands of their burning bodies lighting 
the gardens of the monster on a festive 
night. Hence arose many of the persecu- 
tions of these first centuries, and the world 
knows the story of the suffering and the 
death of thousands of martyrs. There- 
after, in the centuries to come, the edicts 
of various emperors made all kinds of per- 
secutions possible. 

And Paul was arrested to be brought 
before the tribunal of this blood-stained 
adulterer. This time he had no hope for 
aught but death. The charges were heavy, 
such accusations as disturbing the Jews in 
their w^orship, which had been secured to 
them by law, of desecrating their temple, 
"and, above all, in violating the public peace 

35 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

of the Empire by perpetual agitation, as 
the ringleader of a new and factious set." 
There was an express law against intro- 
ducing religions new and illicit; it was 
treason against the commonwealth, and was 
punishable with death, which was the sen- 
tence that the apostle received. 

When Paul took that last journey out- 
side the city walls it was not by the Appian 
Way. Being a Roman citizen, he was 
exempt from an ignominious death of tor- 
ture, but was to die by decapitation; and 
he was led out to execution on the road to 
Ostia, the port of Rome. A famous 
biographer has described it in these words; 
"As the martyr and his executioners passed 
on, their way was crowded with a motley 
multitude of goers and comers between 
the metropolis and its harbor. Merchants 
hastening to superintend the unloading of 
cargoes — sailors eager to squander the 
profits of their last voyage in the disssipa- 
tions of the capital — officials of the govern- 

36 



A PRISONER'S FATE 

merit, charged with the administration of 
the provinces, or the command of the le- 
gions on the Euphrates or the Rhine — Chal- 
dean astrologers, Phrygian eunuchs, danc- 
ing girls from Syria, with their painted 
turbans, — merchant priests from Egypt, 
howling for Osiris — Greek adventurers, 
eager to coin their national cunning into 
Roman gold — representatives of the avarice 
and ambition, the fraud and the lust, the 
superstition and intelligence of the impe- 
rial world. Through the dust and tumult 
of that busy throng the small troop of sol- 
diers wended their way silently, under the 
bright sky of an Italian mid-summer. They 
were marching, though they knew it not, in 
a procession more truly triumphal than any 
they had ever followed in the train of gen- 
eral or emperor along the Sacred Way. 
Their prisoner, now and at last and forever 
delivered from his captivity, rejoiced to 
follow his Lord without the Gate. The 
place of execution was not far distant, and 

37 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

there the sword of the headsman ended his 
long course of suffering, and released the 
heroic soul from that feeble body. Weep- 
ing friends took up the corpse and carried 
it for burial to close subterranean laby- 
rinths, where, through many ages of oppres- 
sion, the persecuted Church found refuges 
for the living and sepulchers for the dead" 
— the Catacombs at Rome. 



38 



THE FAMILY TOMB 

A S far back as we are able to go in 
y% Egyptian and some other Oriental 
history, we are impressed with the 
scientific care which the ancients took of 
their dead and their hygienic burials. So 
the Romans used that same ancient supe- 
riority, and two diiFerent customs were 
largely practiced, both that of cremating 
and that of burying the body entire. As 
the practice of burning the body was largely 
favored, there still remains to be seen 
about Rome subterranean rooms, with many 
niches, holding vases of various patterns, in 
which are sealed human ashes. These vaults 
are called the Columbari, after the Latin 
for doves, since they resemble dove-cots. 

Then gradually the old families of 
wealth and position adopted the custom of 

39 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

erecting tombs to serve as monuments to 
their riches and station, and in which they 
buried the bodies embalmed, as seen in the 
ruins of many sepulchral edifices along the 
Appian Way. 

But there is in this locality a family 
tomb greater than any others to be men- 
tioned; the most stupendous monument of 
the most stupendous fact in history, a living, 
breathing, speaking monument of the new- 
born Christian Church. The Christians 
were bound together as one great family, 
bound by the same laws of love and charity, 
by the same fears and persecutions, by the 
same symbols and signs of a great religion, 
and as a family they were laid by thousands 
in the same tomb. It has been both claimed 
and denied that the opportunity for the 
first burials came more by chance than de- 
sign. 

Explanations have been founded upon 
this evidence: The soil of Italy is rich in 
building materials, fine sand, tufa, and 

40 



THE FAMILY TOMB 

beautiful marbles everywhere abounding. 
Outside of Rome there were large excava- 
tions for these, and portions of the Cam- 
pagna were undermined to a large extent. 
Sand-diggers were employed in great num- 
bers from the commonest ranks of people, 
and Christianity, spreading as it did among 
such, picked up many converts from these 
laborers. Consequently it has been nat- 
ural to conclude that when death came their 
bodies should be laid away in these great 
caverns. Again we learn that it was only 
as entrances to the real strata of the Cata- 
combs that the excavations of the sand- 
diggers were used, and that the excavations 
for the Catacombs were begun by no mere 
chance, but for the sole purpose of the in- 
terment of the dead. The bodies, instead 
of being cremated, as were most of the poor 
and lowly, should be put away entire, the 
more preferable fashion adopted by those 
of rank and wealth. Yet again, perchance 
they preferred this mode for other impor- 

41 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

tant reasons. It was an impressive fact to 
them that the body of their Lord had been 
laid in the tomb, wrapped in fine hnen and 
spices. He had promised them a resurrec- 
tion, and these simple folk had connected 
the temporal body with that estate. The 
Jews had inherited this Eastern custom of 
burial, and had brought it to Rome. "Pru- 
dentius states that the prospect of a resur- 
rection was a motive of the honors and at- 
tentions paid to the departed. 'There will 
come a time when genial warmth shall re- 
visit these bones and the soul shall resume 
its former tabernacle, animated with living 
blood. . . . For this reason is such care 
bestowed upon the sepulcher: such honor 
paid to the motionless limbs — such luxury 
displayed in funerals. . . . What do these 
excavated rocks signify? What these fair 
monuments? What but that the object 
intrusted to them is sleeping, and not dead. 
. . . But now death itself is blessed, since 
through its pangs is thrown open to the just 

42 



THE FAMILY TOMB 

a way from sorrow to the stars. . . . We 
will adorn the hidden bones with violets and 
many a bough ; and on the epitaph and cold 
stones we will sprinkle liquid odors.' " 

And yet again persecutions were rife, 
ridicule and calumny were heaped upon 
them, the world was hostile to their purity, 
faith, and charity; their religion was under 
ban, and they must needs do things secretly, 
so here in the bowels of the earth, among 
whose labyrinths none dared to venture 
except the hired diggers, the bodies were 
hidden safely away, free from molestation 
of unholy hands. 

If we can grasp the fact of Christian- 
ity's rapid increase, and remember that for 
over three hundred years, including a cen- 
tury under Constantine, the whole Chris- 
tian population of Rome was interred there, 
and that in that city "peopled by more than 
a million inhabitants, so far Christianized 
as to give rise to general complaint that 
the altars and temples of the gods were 
4 43 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

deserted," and that the number of converts 
at the time of Decius alone was fifty thou- 
sand, then we must think of no ordinary 
dimensions. Add to this the fact that it 
was considered a horror to disinter a single 
body, and that also in times of great per- 
secution as many as sixty are known to 
have been buried in one enlarged sepulcher, 
then we can begin to realize how the Cata- 
combs soon grew to be the most stupendous 
testimony to the faith, "save only Chris- 
tian Scriptures, and the Christian Church 
itself, still surviving long ages of kindred 
opposition." There are no monuments to 
pagan belief and worship, no pyramids of 
Egypt, no temples of Greece, that are 
more of a witness to the power of a faith 
than these undermined recesses of darkness. 



44 



**AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES'' 

ON the last day of May, fifteen hun- 
dred and seventy-eight, laborers 
were digging in the fields of the 
Campagna, just outside of Rome, when 
their implements broke into a large cavern. 
It was of such unusual appearance and 
gave evidence of relics and bodies long since 
buried, together with paintings and inscrip- 
tidns, that the authorities were immediately 
apprised of the fact. Like each new dis- 
covery, this one was credited with caution 
at its inception ; then people suddenly began 
to remember that before the pall of the 
Dark Ages had settled upon them this 
ground had been used by earliest Christians 
as a sort of refuge asylum and cemetery. 
Thereupon the Church now seized control 
of the site, and the archaeologist was per- 

45 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

mitted to explore. One came for a few 
months and staid twenty years. Within 
the sixteenth century the entire range of 
the Catacombs was re-opened, and the 
sacred dust of more than a thousand years 
was upturned. Old traditions long since 
died out were brought to light, and "the 
fascinations of 'Roma Sotteranea' were 
fixed tentacles upon the minds of scholars 
and explorers." 

There is necessarily a dispute at present 
as to the number of the Catacombs, for 
several that were once separated are now 
classed under one name. Some authorities 
have said there were forty-two, others have 
said sixty or more. Neither of these large 
numbers convey a correct impression, for 
the traveler in Rome to-day, or a reader 
upon the subject, rarely hears of or reads 
of more than seven better known names for 
the entire classification. As previously 
mentioned, they all lie outside the walls of 
the city, mostly in one general direction, 

46 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

scattered over a comparatively small portion 
of the vast, desolate Campagna, with en- 
trances situated somewhere near the popular 
Appian Way. 

Shortly after arriving in Rome the first 
journey to the Catacombs became upper- 
most in our minds, so we planned for a 
day's excursion especially devoted to them. 
It must be a walking tour for several rea- 
sons: first, there is something in the air 
of Rome in the fall of the year that com- 
pels you to walk, in sheer pleasure of the 
exhilaration that lifts you up out of your- 
self; again, although carriage hire is very 
cheap, compared with America, yet it would 
be folly to take one for the day when 
expecting to be out of it so much, and 
underground. 

The morning was ideal, and, leaving our 
apartment near the Piazza di Spagna, we 
walked down through ancient, modernized 
streets, stopping at the little shops to pick 
up tempting things for our lunch box. Our 

47 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

first objective point was the tomb of St. 
Paul, in the church of his name, San Paolo, 
Outside the Walls. Over by the Forum, the 
heart of the ancient city, in the Mamertine 
Prison, is the underground cell in which, 
according to Roman Catholic tradition, Sts. 
Peter and Paul were jailed. The tradition 
so far as Paul is concerned may have some 
foundation of truth, but neither the consci- 
entious historian nor archaeologist can find 
any proof of Peter ever having been in the 
Eternal City. Across the Tiber, by the 
Church of San Pietro in JNIonitorio, they 
vv^ill take you into the little chapel said to 
be over the spot where he was crucified, head 
downwards, and they will dig up a bit of a 
soil from beneath a tiny aperture, and tell 
you it was trodden by the sacred feet. It 
is all only one more vivid reminder of their 
vain superstitions. In that vast mauso- 
leum, built to a fisherman, the great St. 
Peter's, you may be awed by the hundred 
lamps, never dimmed, about the marbled 

48 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

sarcophagus, and you may feel a little thrill 
when you peep at the small golden casket, 
which they tell you contains the apostle's 
bones, and then you turn away with dis- 
interest, for you are reminded that all it is 
falls down on the words, "They say." 

But all this is not so in regard to St. 
Paul, for even profane history proves many 
of his footsteps in Rome, and it is with a 
feeling akin to a deep reverence that you 
approach his tomb. So the writer and 
friend left the city that morning, going 
partly by tram through the Porta Ostiensis, 
or the Porta San Paolo as it is now more 
frequently called, for this was the way that 
St. Paul passed to his martyrdom. It is 
said to be the most picturesque of the gates 
of Rome, being double and built in the times 
of two early emperors. The outer gateway 
has one arch, the inner two flanked with 
stone towers. On the right of the entrance 
is an imposing pyramid, originally faced 
with smooth slabs of marble, and standing 

49 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

on a travertine base ninety-five feet in di- 
ameter, the whole being one hundred and 
fifteen feet high. It was erected as a tomb 
some twenty or thirty years before Christ 
for Caius Cestius (an entablature speaks of 
him as an Epicurean, but it would read 
more truly if plain Anglo-Saxon glutton 
was spelled there instead) . Seven times a 
day his table was spread with a feast, and 
his insatiable vanity would have a tomb dif- 
ferent from all others in his cosmopolitan 
city, a pyramid of no mean proportions, ve- 
neered in marble. After having passed the 
walls, it does not seem long until the finest 
of Roman churches begins to charm with 
its beauty. Once inside, it is truly "one vast 
hall of marble, with eighty Corinthian pil- 
lars forming the nave, and reflected in the 
marble pavement." The restoration has 
been most complete and beautiful since the 
fire of 1823. Below the altar the tomb of 
Paul is shadowed by a bronze canopy sup- 
ported by four pillars of Oriental alabas- 

50 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ter, presented by Mehemet Ali, Pasha of 
Egypt. Below this is the tomb of Tim- 
othy. Many beautiful things are to be 
found about the edifice, particularly two 
altars of malachite presented by a Czar of 
Russia, and paintings and statues in great 
numbers. Quite up against the high ceiling, 
reaching almost around the interior, are two 
hundred and sixty portraits of popes, laid 
in wonderful mosaic, splendidly lifelike for 
not having been done by brush. Pope Peter 
comes first with heavj^ brown whiskers, and, 
according to Catholic lists again, Linus is 
second, whose very bright eyes follow you 
everywhere. You may chance to overhear a 
guide telling his party that the present 
Queen of Portugal, a lineal descendant of 
Pope Linus, presented two immense dia- 
monds, each valued at $1,000, for the por- 
trait's eyes. 

But your own eyes look away, and turn 
once more back to the beautiful altar of 
malachite so green and shining, and the 

51 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

precious pillars of alabaster; for here, be- 
neath the transept, where the wings of the 
church cross the long nave, just as the arms 
of the cross transept its beam, where, archi- 
tecturally speaking, the head of Christ 
would lie, here in the most sacred spot of the 
cruciform church, we are told, lie all that is 
mortal of Paul of Tarsus and his beloved 
Timothy. With the possibility of this 
filling you with awe, you recede from the 
presence along that flawless marble floor, 
out among those violet marbled columns 
sending their capitols of white and helio- 
trope up into the ceiling of gold, a won- 
derful dream it seems to you, on out into 
the sunlit air of reality. 

O, the marble! the marble! O Italia, 
Italia, when comes the exhaustion of your 
quarries, pillaged and plundered! Every- 
where we find the wealth of them stored in 
houses and castles, churches and temples, 
gardens and fields, tombs and mausoleums, 
underground and above ground, all built 

52 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

from your storehouse of precious blocks. 
We know that at one time Michael Angelo 
tore down the marble columns of ancient 
St. Peter, shattering their noble propor- 
tions, and then went off to your exhaustless 
quarries for more, bringing back eleven 
carloads of priceless shafts to lie neglected 
on the ground. 

Just beyond the Church of St. Paul's 
is the Place of Three Fountains, where Paul 
was beheaded; but, turning to a road to the 
left of the church, the Strada delle Sette 
Chiese, or the Way of the Seven Churches, 
you find yourself taking a cross cut to the 
Appian Way. 

"The Catacombs or St. Domitilla" 

The perfection of the morning seemed 
to be enhanced as we turned down the beau- 
tiful country road, for there was nothing 
to mar the rural peace nor disturb us except 
several coachmen at the outset, each insist- 

53 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

ing that we take his carriage, his was the 
cheapest and best, and one unpleasantly in- 
sisting as to the necessity; so he followed 
several hundred feet, and would not leave 
off until I turned about, appearing very 
angry and stamping my foot. This brought 
a volley of invectives from him in the reg- 
ular heated style of Southern blood, and two 
lone women felt relief to see him wheel 
abruptly and join his jeering fellows. We 
turned our faces toward the path before us ; 
here stretched the soft country roadway, 
bordered by everything green, for no bright 
colors yet appeared in this warm Italian 
November. Now and then a green, glit- 
tering lizard darted across our path, not 
stopping to seek acquaintanceship, and the 
short journey was uneventful until we spied 
a signboard some distance ahead, glaring 
white letters on a low building off the road, 
announcing the location of the Catacomb 
St. Domitilla, and that spot to be the en- 
trance. Proceeding to the gateway, we 

54 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

entered a garden stocked with relics of the 
past, and ancient burial appointments. An 
open doorway invited us, and upon going 
in and being persuaded to pay an entrance 
fee of one lira, or twenty cents each, we 
were now entitled to a rich investigation. 
In one of the rooms hung pictures of M. de 
Rossi and his colleagues, that noble ex- 
plorer, who, with thirty years of study and 
preparation, unearthed the storied history 
and grand testimony of the Catacombs 
from under centuries of oblivion. 

At the entrance of this catacomb of St. 
Domitilla is a magnificent basilica or 
church, with three naves, erected about the 
close of the fourth century, in honor of the 
saints Nereus, Achilles, and Petronilla. 
These names, with that of Domitilla, do 
much to remind the visitor that he is meet- 
ing the true romance of history, for the 
catacomb takes its name from Flavia 
Domitilla, niece of the Emperor Domitian, 
and whose husband, Titus Flavins Clemens, 

55 



J 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

was nephew of the Emperor Vespasian. So 
this royal family, Domitilla, and her hus- 
band embraced Christianity, and were ac- 
cused of atheism by their emperor uncle, 
Domitian, who was then persecuting the 
Christians. "Some he put to death, and 
others had their goods confiscated." Domi- 
tilla was banished to the island of Pauda- 
taria, and her husband was put to death. 
Later there was a younger Domitilla, a 
niece, also banished, and she was accom- 
panied by her two Christian servants, 
Nereus and Achilles, whose banishment is 
spoken of by St. Jerome as a "life-long 
martyrdom." It is said that her cell was 
visited by St. Paul, and that she was after- 
wards brought back to mainland to be burnt 
alive at Terracina, because she refused to 
sacrifice to idols. In this catacomb are 
preserved many of her relics. It is so full 
of evidence of her life and the customs of 
the times that this catacomb must be classed 
with the first century, the oldest burial 

56 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ground of them all, leading hack to the 
forms of worship of the first church, set 
up immediately after the Lord's ministerial 
period. It has been recently understood in 
Rome that the Cathohc Church, in making 
explorations in hitherto undiscovered parts 
of this earliest burial ground, found such 
direct evidences of the apostolic forms of 
worship as to be in direct contradiction to 
the forms now employed by that branch of 
the Church, and that they are keeping these 
discoveries strictly within a small circle of 
themselves, being loath to expose the pres- 
ent-day variance. 

Descending a magnificent marble stair- 
case, we enter a chamber brilliantly illum- 
ined by the light of day, coming in through 
numerous apertures called illuminare. In 
all probability it was this chamber which 
contained the sepulchers of Sts. Nereus and 
Achilles, and here St. Gregory delivered 
his twenty-eighth homily, in which he says, 
"These saints, before whose tomb we are 

57 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

assembled, despised the world and trampled 
it under their feet, when peace, plenty, 
riches, and health gave its charms." To-day 
this room is scattered with fragments of 
broken marble, covered with inscriptions 
stripped from the tombs. They are in both 
Latin and Greek, and are of great value 
from a religious point of view. Some of 
them give evidence that early Christian 
famihes made subterranean chambers at 
their own expense and for their own use. 
"Marcus Aurelius made this subterranean 
for himself and those of his family who be- 
lieved in the Lord," is found on a loose 
stone, and it also shows that many of his 
family were still pagan, and is unquestion- 
ably a proof of very high antiquity. 

Converging from this chamber are 
many surrounding galleries which contain 
the loculi or places for the dead. These 
galleries are of the widest and loftiest in 
this catacomb. Leaving the bright apart- 
ment by an exit in the side wall, the explorer 

58 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

immediately finds himself in a long, low, 
narrow gallery, utterly dark except for the 
feeble rays of his candle, which the guide 
had lighted for him just previous to his en- 
trance. Groping along the way, the can- 
dle's fitful light will half reveal, half dis- 
close the bare, brown walls, floor, ceiling, 
and sides all irregularly hollowed out of the 
hard, dark earth. We marvel that here 
where such a construction of a strange 
burial place seemed necessary, that Mother 
Earth should have ready the very substance 
best suited for these cities of the dead. We 
call it tufa or rock, a composite of a vol- 
canic nature, of a medium densitv, neither 
hard rock nor soft soil, yet easily cut and 
impervious to water. 

No drafted plans were ever made for the 
construction of the Catacombs; according 
to the custom of the times, the poor families 
began delving out their tombs down in the 
soft rock, other families joined those bound 
together by Christian ties of friendship, 
5 59 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

coming to place their dead side by side, 
never an idea of following a regular line of 
excavation. As burials increased by the 
hundreds and thousands, making way for 
the entire Christian family, rich and poor, 
popes, bishops, priests, saints, and martyrs 
alike, the galleries crossed and recrossed, 
some running straight for a few yards or 
hundreds of yards, all forming a vast net- 
work of passages and connecting as con- 
tiguous cemeteries. The passage is never 
more than two and a half to four feet in 
width, and seven to ten feet high, and on 
either side at irregular intervals, though 
sometimes regular enough, are the openings, 
rectangularly delved, and in which are laid 
the bodies of the dead, shelved away, some- 
times seven, one above the other. After 
the dead were placed within, the openings 
were covered with marble slabs and her- 
metically sealed, so that each grave was con- 
cealed and kept within itself the ravages of 
decomposition. The tombs dug out like 

60 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

shelves in the rock, of different sizes ac- 
cording to the body to be placed therein, 
have for the most part no inscriptions; 
again, a single adjective will describe some 
attribute of the sleeper, his piety, affection, 
or the words "In Pace" (peace) , "At Rest," 
fraught with double meaning to the perse- 
cuted Christian of the day. 

In addition to these brief epitaphs, or 
often when there is no epitaph at all, there 
is a symbolical reference made plain in some 
such emblem as the dove, the palm branch, 
the anchor, or the multifarious fish. We are 
told that all the sides of these dark earthy 
passages were originally covered with a 
marble veneer, and that when the Catacombs 
went into disuse, various popes, architects, 
and builders came and stripped them of 
their precious marble, and made many new 
Romes of them in the centuries of the city's 
several devastations. 

To get a clearer idea of the extent of 
these galleries, imagine that after taking a 

61 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

few steps forward you can either continue 
for often a very long distance, or turn to 
either side into branch galleries which shoot 
off in every direction most frequently, and 
which in their turn lead on into countless 
others, here and there, nearby and far dis- 
tant. Presently you may come to a stair- 
way dug downwards out of the hard earth, 
and, descending, you find yourself on an- 
other plane, traversing similar countless 
galleries. Again you can descend another 
story, and yet again, for in all probability 
there will be always three stories, frequently 
five, with their miles of serried tombs 
stretching away in every direction, while in 
one catacomb, that of St. Calixtus, there is 
a part comprised of seven stories. Should 
one be associating this mass of deep excava- 
tions with the New York Underground 
Railway, or the London Tuppenny Tube, 
or some other such twentieth century feats, 
the vastness of the idea might appear more 
credible. Strangely wonderful and unreal 

62 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

does it seem to put it back fifteen to nine- 
teen hundred years ago. 

But the Catacombs are not altogether a 
series of narrow galleries, for frequently 
the visitor takes a step and finds himself 
through an entrance within a small cham- 
ber, often feebly lighted by a ray of sun- 
light shooting down a shaft. These cham- 
bers are numerous, and several different 
reasons may be assigned to their construc- 
tion. Coming at the intersection of main 
passages, these rooms were formed some- 
times with considerable dimensions, and 
then became burial places for persons of 
noted families, or for those of peculiar sanc- 
tity, as for a martyr. Again, there would 
be not only one of these special chambers, 
but a series of two, three, or five, forming 
private vaults to which the family could 
come and keep its funeral feasts and other 
sad rites. These chambers are decorated 
with paintings in fresco or sculptured sar- 
cophagi, and which furnish a large store of 

63 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

information concerning the manner and 
form of early worship. It is beUeved that 
here in these rooms, with their immediate 
surrounding passages, the multitudes gath- 
ered for secret worship, and during times of 
severe persecution the up-ground entrances 
to the Catacombs could be easily concealed, 
or while some were guarded the fugitives 
could gather for the celebration of the 
Eucharist, and then make good their escape 
by a secret exit. 

In these small chambers or cubicula the 
places for interment are arranged differ- 
ently from those of the narrow galleries; 
they are the table tomb and the arched tomb 
or arcosolium. These were the graves of 
persons distinguished either through family 
or martyrdom to the cause. This recess 
hollowed out above the chest-tomb had a 
special use made of it for the celebration 
of certain mysteries. It was converted into 
an altar, and to this altar as a place of wor- 
ship comrades came, on anniversaries filling 

64 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the room, as many as an hundred, or still 
more could be gathered in an adjoining 
cubieula. Not only in ecclesiastical writings 
do we learn that here they worshiped and 
celebrated the feast of the Lord's Supper, 
but in the very walls of the chambers we 
have circumstantial evidence in the epis- 
copal chairs found there, "chairs for the 
presiding deacon or deaconess, and benches 
for the faithful formed part of the original 
design, when the tomb was first opened, 
hewn out of the rock, and still remaining." 
This catacomb of St. Domitilla, some- 
times called that of Sts. Nereus and Achil- 
les, is now considered to be the oldest of all 
others. It is certainly the richest storehouse 
of the very first customs and ofiices of the 
earliest Church organizations. 

Catacombs or St. Calixtus 

Probably the most interesting catacombs 
of all, and of those most frequently visited 
by tourists, are those of St. Calixtus, lying 

65 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

about two miles from the city wall, directly 
on the frequented Appian Way, where one 
can stand on the slight elevation above 
them and overlook the historic Campagna, 
far to the Alban hills. These catacombs 
are of later date than the first century, and 
they contain graves not only of famous 
popes well known in Church history, some 
of them martyrs, but also of other martyrs, 
notably the grave of St. Cecilia, the patron 
saint of Music, whom Raphael has immor- 
talized upon glowing canvas. 

On a visit to these interesting ruins one 
will find them in charge of a few Trappist 
monks, who reside in some small buildings 
above the ground and keep a shop for the 
selling of pictures and various souvenirs, 
one especially being a little marble repro- 
duction of the body of St. Cecilia as it was 
found some centuries after death, well pre- 
served, but turned in its position, with the 
cut of the executioner's saber still to be 
seen on the neck, and the head attached to 
the body. 66 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

A traveler says that, after a monk had 
taken him into his "back-yard" (mercy, how 
American!), he expected to find here at the 
entrance to these catacombs "some great 
architectural demonstration, but there was 
nothing in sight except an upraised mound 
that looked like the entrance to a West 
Texas stormhouse more than anything else. 
Imagine our astonishment when the old 
priest wobbled straight to that stormhouse 
and, without preliminaries or hesitation, 
stepped into the dark hole, remarking as he 
stooped and led the way, *Look for your 
heads, zhendlemen.' " 

And here was the fat priest, in a dirty 
brown robe, ever so much more sophisti- 
cated than our attentive guide in civilian 
dress at Domitilla's, and leading us uncere- 
moniously to that stormhouse (fancy a 
stormhouse on the Campagna) . Under this 
rude covering were the ancient steps carved 
out seventeen hundred years ago, badly 
worn by millions of feet, but now restored 

67 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

from further decay and dilapidation with 
facings of marble. 

The first underground entrance-room is 
one of the cubicula chambers, a sepulchral 
cubiculum for burial, interspersed through 
the galleries, from which the door leads 
into that most interesting room, the chapel 
of the popes. This chapel was a place of 
burial and worship in the third and fourth 
centuries. "The walls are lined with the 
graves of the earliest popes, many of them 
martyrs." "We know^ that ancient tradi- 
tion speaks of the Vatican as the resting 
place of the earliest bishops of Rome, 
coupled with the name of St. Peter ; though, 
be it added, tradition does not speak of him 
as a bishop." 

But it was in this catacomb that the 
early bishops were laid to rest, many of 
them martyrs, side by side the saints and 
martyrs of humbler rank in the Church. 

The name of each pope suggests a pe- 
riod of bloody history and persecutions 

68 




''The walls are lined with the graves of 
the earliest popes/* 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

upon which early Christianity seemed to 
thrive. There are here the remains of the 
ancient altar upon which many popes con- 
ducted sacred rites in the presence of the 
tombs of their martyred colleagues. The 
recess before which this altar stood appears 
as an old fireplace, made of the flat Roman 
brick, now mostly demolished. In front of 
this is the marble platform of the altar, 
composed of two sections; the first having 
the grooves whereupon rested four hand- 
some marble columns, some of the scattered 
fragments of which are now lying about the 
chapel, a vivid testimony to their ancient 
beauty. Other fragments of stone are 
about, with Greek inscriptions, which was 
the language of the early Church. We are 
reminded that this historic chamber, as well 
as most of this group of catacombs, were 
all reopened by Pope Damascus (366-84), 
for this beautifully cut inscription was 
found over the altar; "(Damascus) whose 
labor of love it was to rediscover the tombs, 

69 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

which had been blocked up for concealment 
under Diocletian, to remove the earth, widen 
the passages, adorn the sepulchral chambers 
with marble, and support the friable tufa 
walls with arches of brick and stone." Da- 
mascus was buried in the chapel above the 
entrance. 

There are three points of historic inter- 
est in this catacomb of St. Calixtus: *'First, 
the roof -shaped tomb of Pope S. Melchi- 
ades, who lived long in peace, and died in 
313. Second, the cubiculum of Pope S. 
Eusebius, with one of the beautiful inscrip- 
tions of Pope Damascus, translated: 

" 'Heraclius forbade the lapsed to grieve 
for their sins; Eusebius taught those un- 
happy ones to weep for their crimes; the 
people were rent into parties, and with in- 
creasing fury began sedition, slaughter, 
fighting, discord, and strife. Straightway 
both (the pope and heretic) were banished 
by the cruelty of the tyrant, although the 
pope was preserving the bonds of peace in- 

70 




Tomh of Pope S. Cornelius, and 
stairway of exit. 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

violate. He bore his exile with joy, looking 
to the Lord as his judge, and on the shore 
of Sicily gave up the world and his life.' " 

Third, the place is that "near the exit, 
properly in the catacombs of St. Lucina, 
connected with Lucina by a labyrinth of 
galleries, is the tomb of Pope S. Cornelius 
(251-52), the only Roman bishop down to 
the time of S. Sylvester (314) who bore 
the name of any noble family, and whose 
epitaph, perhaps in consequence, is in Latin, 
while others are in Greek. The tomb has 
no chapel of its own, but is a mere grave 
in the gallery, with a rectangular instead of 
a circular space above, as in the cubicula. 
Near the tomb are fragments of one of S. 
Damascus 's commemorative inscriptions, in- 
geniously restored by De Rossi, thus : 

" *Behold, a way down has been con- 
structed and the darkness dispelled, you 
see the monuments of Cornelius and his sa- 
cred tomb. This work of zeal Damascus 
has accomplished, sick as he is, in order that 
6 71 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

the approach might be better, and the aid 
of the saint be convenient for the people, 
and that if you will pour forth prayers 
from a pure heart, Damascus may rise up 
better in health, though it has not been love 
of life, but care for work, that has kept 
him (here below) .' " 

St. Cornelius was banished under Gallus, 
then was brought back to Rome and mar- 
tyrdom, September 14, 252. On the same 
day of the month, 258, his friend and cor- 
respondent, S. Cyprian, archbishop of Car- 
thage, was martyred, and is subsequently 
commemorated by the Church on the same 
day. Therefore, on the right of the grave 
are two figures of bishops with inscriptions 
declaring them to be S. Cornelius and S. 
Cyprian. Each holds the book of the Gos- 
pels in his hands and is clad in pontifical 
robes. 

Again on through the many interlacing 
passages we find once more the similar lo- 
culi, a few still sealed, the most but yawn- 

72 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ing cavities, where either the mortal remains 
have long since disintegrated, mingling with 
the dust drapery of their earthy couch, 
where an occasional skeleton or a small part 
of one lies still hideous in its slow decompo- 
sition, or where too often the empty grave 
yawns with a tale of useless despoiling and 
wanton devastation. 

On and on, and down or up again, we 
can go to the different pianos, or stories; 
and while we remember that the Goths in 
the sixth and seventh centuries came and 
desecrated this holy ground, we can not for- 
get that Popes Paul and Paschal, think- 
ing to honor and shield the dead, gathered 
their bones promiscuously, we fear, placing 
them in heaps under Christian churches, or, 
to impress upon the living converts, piling 
them up in gruesome and fantastic decora- 
tions along some chapel wall. 

The tourist does not forget that there is 
to be found the tomb of St. Cecilia, a very 
large chamber with an arched roof, and con- 

73 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

taining resting places for several bodies, 
apertures of unequal sizes hollowed in the 
walls; but that where Cecilia lay is on the 
level with the floor, and is a space arched 
over with bricks, so that the opening ap- 
pears as a large old-fashioned fireplace. 
The history concerning this famous woman 
is largely legendary, but the name is used 
by the world in connection with music more 
than any other patron saint. It was she 
who continually heard strains of divine mu- 
sic, and when she suffered martyrdom she 
was buried by her friend Pope Urban, A. D. 
224 (this can not be authenticated). Her 
body was discovered by Pope Paschal I, in 
820, to whom its resting place had been re- 
vealed in a dream, "fresh and perfect as 
when it was first laid in the tomb, and clad 
in rich cloth mixed with gold, with linen 
garments stained with blood rolled up at 
her feet, lying in a cypress coffin." Close 
to the entrance of the cubiculum, upon the 
Avail, is a painting of Cecilia, "a woman 

74 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

richly attired, and adorned with bracelets 
and necklaces." Near it is a niche for the 
lamp which burned before the shrine, at the 
back of which is a large head of our Sav- 
ior, "of the Byzantine type, and with rays 
of glory behind it in the form of a Greek 
cross." There are other figures on the wall: 
that of Pope Urban, and those of some 
saints. 

Catacombs of St. Pretextatus. 

There is another burial ground, whose 
workmanship puts it unmistakably at a very 
early date, and that is the catacombs of St. 
Pretextatus. This has been classified as 
early as the year of our Lord 175. How- 
ever, the manner of construction is very 
different from that of St. Domitilla or from 
others. Earlv writers describe it as "a verv 
large cavern, most firmly built," and this 
is because it was built with bricks, and not 
hewn out of a rock. The Acts of the Saints 
tells us that St. Marmenia, an early Chris- 

75 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

tian of some wealth, "caused it to be ex- 
cavated immediately below his own house." 
Other catacombs, such as St. Agnese, 
all have practically the same construction 
as Domitilla and Calixtus, some of them be- 
ing considered a part of these two best- 
known ones. All were built in the first two 
to four centuries after Christ's ministry. 

The History of the Catacombs. 

The history of the Catacombs may be 
divided into four unequal parts. In the 
first, a period of about four hundred years, 
they were in almost constant use. This in- 
cluded all the construction, the decoration, 
the burials, and the years of suffering mar- 
tyrdom. From the edicts of Hadrian, 
about 117, to those of Valerian, 253, was 
a lengthened period of peace, and even 
churches were built to the faith, and copies 
of holy writings were made. This preceded 
the fearful edict of Diocletian, when, to ex- 
press it in the words of the historian, "pa- 

76 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ganism became alarmed for its very exist- 
ence." Everywhere the last effort of pagan 
fury seemed to expend itself. Churches 
were reduced to ashes and a mere pile of 
stones ; martyrs were burned at many stakes ; 
Christians of high station were sold into 
slavery ; the bishop was committed to prison ; 
and all sacred writings were gathered to- 
gether and burned in great heaps. Then, 
after all this dying unto death, after the 
untold tortures of generations of Christian 
martyrs, the story of which can never be 
realized by any reader, however sympa- 
thetic, there came, as in that strange provi- 
dence the leaders of an age do come, a Chris- 
tian emperor. It was in the memorable 
year of 319 that Constantine, having hum- 
bled himself before that bright, shining 
cross, began to lead the Christians. Within 
twelve years all heathen temples were or- 
dered to be destroyed, and Christianity be- 
came the religion of State, courtly in its 
manner and garb. The wretched, persecuted 

77 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

men hiding in caves, worshiping in fear and 
trembhng, came forth to find this "religion 
of shepherds and fishermen had conquered 
the very seat of imperial power." Chris- 
tianity sat upon the throne in royal splen- 
dor, and the dark Catacombs were forgot- 
ten. In the second period they were in the 
hands of barbarians, who for five hundred 
years besieged the Eternal City, made des- 
olate the Campagna, plundered the Cata- 
combs, and generally changed the map of 
Europe. Alaric with his Visigoths first ad- 
vanced on Rome; then came Vandals, Os- 
trogoths, Lombards, Normans, and Sara- 
cens, each carrying away precious relics of 
the Christian forefathers. In the mean- 
time various popes, in order to protect the 
sainted dead, had many of the bodies re- 
moved to the churches within the city walls, 
and multitudes of marble slabs were torn 
from their moorings in subterranean depths, 
to be used in redecorating pillaged Rome. 
Then for a third period of seven hundred 

78 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

years the Catacombs lay in a state of almost 
unbroken quiet; the reign of ignorance and 
superstition, the pilgrimages to the Holy 
Land, all made the people forget the real 
cradle of the Church. For the last three 
hundred years the fourth period has been 
one of sacred unearthing, of scientific re- 
discovery and of tourist visits. Not a 
scholar, not an inquiring traveler now visits 
their dark chambers but that he comes under 
the spell of their greatness, their strange, 
rude art, and its multiplicity of symbols; 
and then one asks, "Whence came the spirit 
and the motive for all this?" 

The spirit and the motive had been so 
many times oppressed and trodden to the 
death that it appears only divine fire could 
have fed the constant rekindling of the 
flame. Law, calumny, ridicule, Gnosticism, 
and Judaism were all hurled at the new 
faith. The very first converts to Chris- 
tianity were of Jewish and heathen religions, 
and the Church long felt the modifying ef- 

79 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

fects of their prejudices. Jewish tenacity 
for that which was old, and heathen roots 
of mythology left great impressions. The 
philosophy of Plato and Aristotle sought 
to establish an end to that of Jesus Christ. 
Later, Neo-Platonism introduced many 
heresies. All this would pollute the creed 
of any ordinary religion. Moreover, the 
Roman civilization was "corrupting and de- 
grading the whole earth." What a con- 
trast to the black life, the shameless lusts, 
and murderous riots was the pure and spot- 
less Bride of Christ! Each dying martyr 
proclaimed her purity and gladly died in 
her enfolding arms. Within that wicked 
city there sprang up a silent city of men 
and women banded together in the service 
of this Bride, the Church. They called 
each other "Brother" and "Sister," and 
spoke among them a name which seemed to 
make them feel supreme power over all ob- 
stacles in their lives. The name represented 
one of the humblest of earth's dwellers, 

80 



AFTER NINETEEN CENTURIES 

whose own countrymen had put Him to 
death as a criminal. They spoke of Him 
as ahve, yet all knew that He had died. 
The}^ believed in immortality, but that be- 
lief came not through "nicely balanced ar- 
guments," nor through a dream of "an- 
cient faith shrouded in mysteries." It was 
simply a swallowing up of death in life, 
which made "death to them but an incident 
in life." This was far different from any 
faith yet put out, and so they came to be 
distinguished as "brothers, disciples, believ- 
ers," the whole society demanding univer- 
sal allegiance, claiming to be in itself an 
universal kingdom, yet all resolving itself 
into an absorbing, personal devotion never 
approached in the annals of history. 



81 



LIFE, WORSHIP, MARTYRDOM IN 
THE CATACOMBS 

THE paintings in portrait of saints 
upon the walls represent to us 
something more than productions 
of the art of the period ; they speak to us of 
lives that were sometimes partly lived and 
ended within the precincts of those dark 
caverns. There would be no denying the 
fact that life could be maintained in those 
dismal regions, for every now and then one 
will come to an air sh^ft, tiny, yet admit- 
ting a little stream of light and air from 
green fields above. Wells and springs have 
been discovered; one, named the Font of 
St. Petern, was long used for baptism. 
There have been much evidence and proof 
of life having been maintained in the corri- 
dors for indefinite periods, especially that 
of refuge in times of persecution; even the 

82 



LIFE, WORSHIP, MARTYRDOM 

life of cattle was so maintained. We are 
reminded that, "had the intricacies of the 
Catacombs been well known to the heathen 
authorities, or the entrances limited in num- 
ber to two or three, they would doubtless 
have afforded an insecure asylum. But the 
entrances were numberless, scattered over 
the Campagna for miles, and the labyrinth 
below so occupied by the Christians, and so 
blocked up in various places by them, that 
pursuit must have been almost useless." 

The heathens realized the importance of 
the Catacombs as a sure and safe retreat, 
and edicts were issued accordingly, forbid- 
ding entrance, under penalty of death, 
which sentence was often carried out. 

About the year of 117 to 138, Hadrian 
attempted justice in his edict by requiring 
a fair trial, and punishment in proportion 
to the offense, "not wishing the Christians 
to be harassed, nor malicious informers to 
be encouraged, but punished." But Vale- 
rian, in 253, forbade the Christians to as- 

83 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

semble at the cemeteries on pain of death. 
Yet this they managed in a measure to dis- 
regard, as there were so many secret en- 
trances and exits to the Catacombs. Any 
imperial soldier would long hesitate before 
taking the risk of losing his way in their 
long, dark caverns. 

This matter of residence brings us to 
another, equally obvious: that of worship 
there; for the presence of the chapels, 
with their altar tombs, is first evidence ; then 
the finding of episcopal chairs, fonts, and 
indications of the celebration of the Eucha- 
rist and Agapse, have added conclusiveness. 

Before Constantine there were no struc- 
tures set apart for worship; congregations 
must be accommodated, especially when 
edicts forbade them gathering in the city; 
hence their first and last great refuge, those 
many intricate corridors; there where their 
own loved ones lay waiting the summons 
of the resurrection; there, with lamps in 
their hands, they too, as the virgins had 

84 



LIFE, WORSHIP, MARTYRDOM 

told them of, awaited their Bridegroom; 
and these the Church, in some form of serv- 
ice and worship, kept offering herself as 
His bride. 

The act of worship then was a greater 
source of annoyance to various emperors 
and greater reason for their edicts than mere 
assemblies. One well-known inscription 
found over one of the graves in the cem- 
etery of St. Calixtus reads thus: "In Christ, 
Alexander is not dead, but lives beyond the 
stars, and his body rests in this tomb. He 
lived under the Emperor Antonine, who, 
foreseeing that great benefit would result 
from his services, returned evil for good. 
For while on his knees, and about to sacri- 
fice to the true God, he was led away to exe- 
cution. O, sad times! in which sacred rites 
and prayers, even in caverns, afford no pro- 
tection to us. What can be more wretched 
than such a life? and what than such a 
death? when they could not be buried by 
their friends and relations — at length they 

85. 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

sparkle in heaven. He has scarcely lived, 
who has lived in Christian times." And so 
the long-suffering martyrs often could not 
be buried by friends or relatives, and their 
bodies were more often reduced to ashes by 
their persecutors, who believed that this de- 
stroyed all possibility of resurrection. 

The very rapidity of the growth of the 
new religion incensed the pagans, and the 
seeming proselyting from their ranks in- 
curred pagan hatred and incited to perse- 
cution. Martyrdom forms one great chap- 
ter in the world's history, and page after 
page is taken up with the description of 
the horrors suffered by the followers of 
Christ, who gloried in the fact that they 
could suffer for His sake. Some instru- 
ments of persecution were found in the 
Catacombs, as forceps (the ungula), combs, 
etc., for tearing the flesh. Other instru- 
ments are to be seen in the Vatican, but 
their newness can not deceive the antiqua- 
rian. 

86 



LIFE, WORSHIP, MARTYRDOM 

Shortly after the Diocletian persecution 
we begin to find first record of martyrs' 
worship. The martyr began to be looked 
upon as being of peculiar sanctity. It was 
he who interceded with the Church in be- 
half of the excommunicated, and this be- 
gan to be confounded as intercession be- 
tween God and man, and then he was de- 
scribed "as ascending to heaven, charged 
with petitions to be presented before the 
throne, and followed thither by fresh 
prayers and praises" — and so prayers were 
addressed to him, the phrasing often being 
the same as used in divine worship, and 
gradually the martyr became a saint, to be 
worshiped as the Protomartyr Himself. 
This worship grew to an enormous extent, 
as a Christian would sometimes live for in- 
definite periods in the Catacombs, then suf- 
fer martyrdom within their confines, and 
his mutilated body, or a part of it, per- 
chance only the blood gathered into a ves- 
sel, would be set up as a shrine, and wor- 

7 87 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

ship would be carried on there ever after- 
wards. So we find many such shrines of 
martyrdom. 

It is of interest to cite some manufac- 
tured saints, for the people became so eager 
in their indulgence of martyr worship as 
to seize upon the slightest thing which 
would offer opportunity to proclaim sainted 
martyrdom. For instance, Mabillon tells 
of persons in Spain finding an ancient 
stone with inscriptions "S. Viar," who took 
it as the epitaph of a Saint Viar, and at 
once set up his worship. Roman antiqua- 
rians immediately found it to be the frag- 
ment of an inscription to [Pr^fectu] S. 
Viar[um], a curator of the ways. 

Quite the most interesting and preten- 
tious of pseudo saints is the legend of St. 
Veronica. In St. Peter's there is a colossal 
statue of a woman by this name, and the 
thousands worship her and her sacred hand- 
kerchief. "About the darkest time of the 
Middle Ages," we are told, "arose the cus- 

88 



LIFE, WORSHIP, MARTYRDOM 

torn of painting a so-called likeness of the 
Savior upon cloth;" beneath it were in- 
scribed the words "Vera icon," meaning 
true likeness. In 1249 a Cistercian abbess 
wrote to the pope's chaplain, requesting 
that he send her a copy of the picture in 
St. Peter's. He complied, begging her to 
receive "a Holy Veronica, Christ's true 
image." The next stage in the growth of 
the legend was the discovery that the orig- 
inal Veronica was an actual impression of 
our Savior's features miraculously taken at 

ft/ 

some time or other during the agony in the 
garden or on the way to Calvary, or, as 
some supposed, to have been left on the 
head-dress in the sepulcher. But the story 
still wanted something, and Veronica was 
found to be the name of a holy woman 
who followed our Lord to Calvary, and 
who, while piously wiping the Redeemer's 
brow with a cloth, received as reward the 
miraculous imprint of his countenance. So 
the handkerchief of St. Veronica is pub- 

89 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

licly worshiped in Rome upon State occa- 
sions, and the ceremony is performed with 
the utmost splendor. The prostrate multi- 
tude, the domed St. Peter's, dimly lighted 
by the torches in the nave, and the shadowy 
baldachino, hanging to all appearance in 
midair, form a spectacle not easily forgot- 
ten. 

And yet one sees so many such scenes 
in Rome, where the Church feeds the igno- 
rant imagination of the people, setting up 
gross imitations of all kinds of idolatry, 
that wonder almost ceases in the gullibility 
of the people, where every care has been 
taken for centuries to cultivate in them an 
educated ignorance. 



90 



OFFICES AND CUSTOMS OF THE 
ANCIENT CHURCH 

THE general oversight of the Church 
or the duties of universal episco- 
pacy were shared everywhere alike 
by the twelve apostles on their execution 
of the command of going into all the world 
and preaching the gospel to every creature. 
After their generation those who came next 
in high charge changed the itinerary plan, 
and individuals settled in large cities, each 
taking the distinct title of bishop, as Mark 
in Alexandria, Titus in Crete, and Timothy 
in Ephesus. The title of Father in God 
was applied to bishops in general, in the 
word papa, or pope. It was not until the 
end of the sixth century that the idea of 
one universal bishop, or papa, was perpe- 
trated by the Bishop of Constantinople, 
Cyriacus. For this he was severely criti- 

91 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

cised by his Christian brother, Gregory, 
Bishop of Rome. Every one should know 
the final protest of the estimable and hum- 
ble Gregory, for he said, "I tell you confi- 
dently, that whoever styles himself, or 
wishes to be styled, universal priest, does 
in his self-exaltation anticipate Anti-christ, 
setting up himself in pride above his fel- 
lows." Later the office of the Bishop of 
Rome was increased in jurisdiction through- 
out Southern Italy, and the occupant of 
that chair came to be universally thought 
of as the most influential prelate in the 
West. The successors of Gregory grasped 
after the tempting fruit of universal epis- 
copacy, so that finally the Church of Rome 
succeeded in establishing her bishops as the 
supreme head, or papa, of others. The 
Church of the Catacombs at Rome never 
thought of thus outranking her neighbors, 
and the later supremacy became one of the 
many astonishing innovations the Roman 
Church has forced, one after another. 

92 



OFFICES AND CUSTOMS 

Church history tells us that "the- bishops 
of Rome were all buried in the Catacombs 
till the time of Leo I, who died in 462. He 
was interred in the vestibule of the sacristy 
of St. Peter's. From this time we may 
trace the decline of the subterranean cem- 
eteries in public estimation. During the 
troubles that followed, most of their en- 
trances and windings seem to have been 
lost, excepting a few branches of easy ac- 
cess which remained open, and were still 
embellished with ornaments suggested by a 
debased taste." 

The bishop being the highest officer in 
the Church, with the exception of a few of 
them, who came to be classed as archbishops, 
we find the following subordinate officers: 
deacons and sub-deacons, presbyters, aco- 
lytes or waiters, exorcists, lectors, and door- 
keepers. Inscriptions of epitaphs to pres- 
byters, lectors, and their wives have been 
found ; also to other officers, clergymen and 
their wives and daughters. Many women 

93 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

in the Church took upon themselves a pe- 
cuhar office, that of consecration. It was 
taken by women vowed to remain unmar- 
ried, and by those widows vowed not to re- 
marry. Several inscriptions speak of them; 
one cemented in the Vatican library wall 
reads, "To Octavia, a widow, matron of 
God." 

In the early Church thousands of per- 
sons, of both sexes, devoted themselves to 
serving God in singleness of life, and thou- 
sands lived up to their high standard in all 
trueness of heart, and the Church boasted 
of them as her necklace of jewels. In the 
pagan worship at that time were six vestal 
virgins, as a parallel to the Church's tens 
of thousands. 

Then gradually the original purpose of 
celibacy became thwarted, and it was looked 
upon as a species of self-sacrifice, by means 
of which one could obtain eternal life and 
glory, and then was brought about the 
forced celibacy of the clergy, in direct con- 

94 



OFFICES AND CUSTOMS 

tradiction to St. Paul, when he wrote, "Let 
the brethren be husband of one wife." 
The ceUbacy of the clergy only has existed 
but to bring down shame and scandal upon 
the Church. Letters of some of the monks 
who amused themselves with silly women 
dare not be published in their mass of in- 
decency, and one great branch of the Chris- 
tian Church to-day is hampered by its 
foolish rule of celibacy, an unnatural life 
followed by natural immoral practices, as 
to exhibit a great blot upon the high stand- 
ard of Christian living. In the early years 
of this dangerous system Jerome gave a 
warning which the disciple of to-day might 
do well to emulate. "It were better to have 
walked in lowly paths," he wrote, "to have 
submitted to marriage, than, attempting a 
higher ascent, to fall into the depths of 
hell." 

Another scandal, which in the early 
Church was the purest love- feast, grew up 
in that feast of Christendom called the 

95 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

Agape, distinct from the Lord's Supper. 
Each succeeding century brought some 
worse change in the original love- feast. 
Pagans turning Christian who had been 
accustomed to reveling before their idols, 
were permitted to have this part of their 
weakness favored, that they might cele- 
brate days in similar luxury, though not 
with such impiety. Thus the simple re- 
ligious feast as pictured in the Catacombs, 
painted in fresco on their walls, where Peace 
and Love are represented to abide, degen- 
erated into drunken revels held every day 
and far into the night. Paulinnus, Bishop 
of Nola, expresses his grief at this, had 
Scriptural subjects painted over the whole 
of his church to edify the ignorant people, 
whence we see one purpose of Christian art, 
and he expresses himself thus, in excusing 
their ignorance: "How I wish," he said, 
"that their joys would assume a more sober 
character! that they would not mix their 
cups on holy ground ! Yet I think we must 

96 



OFFICES AND CUSTOMS 

be too severe upon the pleasures of their 
little feasts: for error creeps into unlearned 
minds; and their simplicity, unconscious of 
the great fault they commit, verges on piety, 
supposing that the saints are gratified by 
the wine poured on their tombs." They 
would meet secretly to celebrate the feast 
of the Lord's Supper and the "Agapas," 
and this brought them under ban of an edict 
then issued against all fraternities. The 
authorities believed these sessions to be "hot- 
beds of sedition, plots, and conspiracies." 
One hundred and eighty-six years before 
Christ the Romans had with difficulty abol- 
ished that horrible feast of wine and revelrv, 
the detested Bacchanalian, and now some 
supposed the Agape of the Christians to be 
a revival of those orgies. This is confirmed 
in the fact that, being brought on trial be- 
fore Pliny, they were very careful to as- 
sure him of the strict morality of the Lord's 
Supper, and then * 'Pliny states their only 
fault to have been that in meeting on a 

97 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

stated day before daylight, to engage in 
responsive worship to Christ as to a God, 
to bind themselves by oath (sacramentum), 
to abstain from all wickedness, that they 
did not commit any fraud, theft, or adul- 
tery — did not break faith or betray a trust; 
and then, after a brief separation, to re- 
assemble and eat a harmless meal together." 
Finally the degeneration into such revelry 
became entirely omitted from forms of 
Christian worship, and the Agape lives only 
as a thing of history. 

The origin of the mass is simple and in- 
teresting. It grew from the custom of dis- 
missing from service those unbaptized, and 
unbelievers, who were permitted to have the 
Scriptures and the sermon, but not take 
communion; hence their dismissal with the 
words, Ite, missa est — Depart; it is the dis- 
missal. This sending out was designated 
as missio, then missa, and finally our trans- 
lation into "mass." The dismissal after- 
wards gave its name to the entire service, 

98 



OFFICES AND CUSTOMS 

and we call it the mass, also held for the 
baptized as well. 

And how were the baptized taken 
through the ceremony of baptism? Were 
they taken to a river and immersed, as some 
think our Lord was done? Or how did those 
first Christians, who had it inaugurated 
with them by the disciples, conduct that rite ? 
As one should naturally suppose, this cus- 
tom, which must needs be secret, as all 
others, was performed below ground in 
those subterranean chapels of the Cata- 
combs, where many baptismal fonts have 
been discovered. Here infants as well as 
adults were given that sacred privilege, one 
inscription reading: *'The title of Candidus, 
the neophyte, who lived twenty-one months ; 
buried on the nones of September." In the 
year 253 there was a discussion on infant 
baptism, as to "whether the rite should be 
deferred till the eighth day of the infant's 
life or administered at an earlier period." 
Gradually the ceremonies of baptism were 

99 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

elaborated until each new sect chose its own 
code. 

The custom of using lamps, or lights, in 
worship was necessary in the Catacombs, 
owing to their natural darkness. It was, 
however, a pagan custom, and the Chris- 
tians of the first three centuries universally 
reprobated it. 

The using of candles in midday in wor- 
ship above ground was looked upon by 
them as essentially pagan and a sign of 
folly. It was thus specified among the idol- 
atrous rites of the Theodosian code: "Let 
no one, in any kind of place whatsoever, 
in any city, burn lights, offer incense, or 
hang up garlands to senseless idols." 

In reference to the using of lights in 
divine service, Vigilantius exclaims: "We al- 
most see the ceremonial of the Gentiles in- 
troduced into the Churches under pretense 
of religion: piles of candles lighted while 
the sun is still shining; and everywhere 
people kissing and worshiping I know not 

100 



OFFICES AND CUSTOMS 

what ; a little dust in a great vessel wrapj^ed 
up in a precious cloth. Great honor do 
such persons render to the blessed martyrs, 
thinking with miserable tapers to illumine 
those whom the Lamb, in the midst of the 
throne, shines upon with the splendor of 
His majesty." It was latter-day Chris- 
tians who, irrespective of opinions of early 
simplicity, changed to that of the many- 
tapered altar, with its twinkling lights and 
smoking incense. It was in the fourth cen- 
tury that the more simple forms of worship 
seem to have been lost sight of, while dis- 
tinct changes and strange innovations be- 
gan to get firm footing. 



101 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

WHEN that small world grouped 
around about the Mediterranean 
Sea was already filled with 
beautiful creations spoken of as "art;" 
when Greece, long before the siege of Troy, 
had put forth what a larger, older world 
has never since been able to attain; when 
Egypt centuries before had built giant 
temples and painted history on their huge 
surface; when all the petty kingdoms of 
greater Assyria had erected, carved, and 
colored; when back in the dim seons there 
was lifted up a mighty tower, and Babel 
expressed the same groping for such ac- 
tivity; when far to the eastward the rich 
unknown Orient coined artistic forms she 
has never since abandoned; when away 
again to the north and west sturdy Gauls, 

102 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

Saxons, and Celts were crudely shaping 
ideas showing what revolutions of relation 
lay between Stonehenge and Karnak; 
when Vikings, too, were scholars of Beauty, 
prompted by that of the midnight sun, and 
were cruising down far distant shores in 
lands filled with the art of the Indian, the 
Aztec, and the aborigines; when only nine- 
teen hundred years ago Rome was just en- 
tering her decline from all that glory of 
state which still confounds the world, and 
the land of Italy was filled with art second 
only to that of Greece; when — to phrase it 
all — the indomitable spirit has been and will 
be forever striving to perfect what it knows 
to be Art, as it strives to hold out what it 
knows to be a religion, for Art and Re- 
ligion are inseparably bound together, — 
when this is and shall always be the repeti- 
tion of history — then we can fall back upon 
it and say that with the advent of Chris- 
tianity there must have been inherent in 
those early Christians the same outward 

8 103 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

striving to express Art, the same sesthetic 
nature of all that is human, that spirit in- 
nate in the breasts of all mankind. 

"Art," in the words of that great Rus- 
sian philosopher, is but "human activity" 
with a special purpose — "the transmission 
to others of the highest and best feelings to 
which men have risen. Thus, then, all hu- 
man life is filled with works of art of every 
kind, from cradle song, jest, mimicry, the 
ornamentation of houses, dress, and uten- 
sils, church services, monuments, and tri- 
umphal processions." Art and Religion are 
related in this manner that "Art's vital ele- 
ment is interwoven with man's perception, 
and that perception rests on the basis of 
what we consider to be good or evil — and 
what is good and what is evil is defined by 
what are termed religions/' 

Man's highest comprehension of life is 
embodied in the creed of his religion, and 
the strength of this religious conception 
stamps the value of the feeling or the senti- 

104 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

ment in his art. It has been often claimed 
that early Christianity discouraged art. It 
could not have done so in the nature of its 
true philosophy. It is true that art was 
cramped during that early religious period; 
in fact, it was so for twelve centuries, until 
that dark winter ended in the Renaissance, 
earth's most glorious spring, and then the 
Christian religion gave us the most sublime 
specimens of art ; for who can paint another 
*'Sistine Chapel," or a "Transfiguration?" 
or who can carve another image of the 
world's greatest general, such a "Moses," 
as he? 

The relation of Christianity to art in 
the first few centuries was not one of an 
indifferent or even a hostile nature, as many 
writers have claimed. The large percent- 
age of Jewish converts among early Chris- 
tians should call to mind one or two strong 
facts — the Jew or Semitic imagination dif- 
fered with peculiarity from that of the 
Greek or Gentile. And Jews and Greeks 

105 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

held diverse opinions as to the nature of 
God. The Jews will always be Jews as 
something apart from others, and they will 
remain a people peculiar unto themselves. 
We are reminded that the Semitic mind 
could fly to such daring heights, most wild 
and restless, and almost with a "nervous im- 
petuosity" they talked and wrote of the most 
sublime things. On the other hand, certain 
canons of sculpture, painting, and archi- 
tecture will always remain fixed, and these 
the Semite would not or could not observe. 
Again, if he would try to represent his idea 
of God, it would not be such an easy mat- 
ter as for the Greek. The Jew did not be- 
lieve in pulling down Deity to a level with 
the human. Their majestic ideas of One 
whom "the heaven and the heaven of heav- 
ens can not contain" — "the immortal, in- 
visible j only wise God" — made such a repre- 
sentation of Jehovah as inconceivable. 
Thus, then, since Art soars highest as the 
interpreter of religion, it was not for the 

106 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

subjective mind of the Semite to give us 
that high art ; and, moreover, the command- 
ment, "Thou shalt have no other gods be- 
fore Me," certainly made them fear works 
of an idolatrous nature. 

Quite another side to the drawback of 
early Christian art was that of the strong 
pagan environment, that it would seem im- 
possible to create a new school. Early 
Christian sculpture and painting show the 
similarity to heathen types, and the Chris- 
tian fathers were chary of their use. The 
Gentile element was fast coming in; Paul 
and Barnabas had said, "Lo, we turn to the 
Gentiles," so that scarce a century and a 
half had passed, we are told, "when the 
Jewish element had disappeared." We can 
readily detect that pagan forms were fast 
appropriated; and after what comes first in 
the history of any art, the adornment of 
dress, and the decoration of furniture and 
wall spaces, we have the next natural step, 
the decoration of tombs and wall spaces in 

107 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

burial places — and deep in the recesses of 
the Catacombs the remains, as seen to-day, 
show that the early Christians loved art as 
all men love it, and that they strove to the 
best of their ability to develop it. Chris- 
tianity began to take its own subject; Old 
Testament scenes were largely drawn on 
and portrayed with originality and force; 
there is balance and harmony, and a spir- 
itual depth is reached which declares a mean- 
ing quite different from any beauty found 
in pagan paintings. It has not taken close 
students to point out how "these frescoes 
are invaluable indexes of the belief and the 
life of the infant Church. They show that 
the early Christians were animated by a re- 
ligion of cheerfulness and hopefulness." 

Above all else, it is in this art springing 
from this religion that our chief interest in 
the Catacombs lies. The casual observer de- 
tects no beauty in those representations, but 
there is an underlying principle there of 
far more importance than that which is ar- 

108 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

tistic. We must not think that the "fathers 
of the faith" looked upon the so-called 
beauty as seen in the pagan art of the pe- 
riod without holy horror; for it was only 
time that could make them less austere, so 
that after a long period of toleration they 
could countenance artistic beauty with pleas- 
ure. It has already been pointed out to us 
that "the Christians of the fourth century 
saw that they must be reconciled with the 
world before they could fully conquer it. 
They resolved, like Paul, to be 'all things 
to all men,' and they judged for themselves 
when it was expedient to give a new direc- 
tion to the dying arts of paganism." 

But wherefore was the reason for all 
this unique cycle of Christian paintings? It 
was a reason many and varied. A most 
eminent authority reminds us that "it was 
not a matter of choice that early Christian- 
ity at Rome and elsewhere spent so much 
labor in the construction and adornment of 
the Catacombs. It was a necessity of the 

109 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

most imperative kind. It was the earnest, 
constant, persevering faith against pagan- 
ism and Judaism on the one hand, and 
heresy and Gnosticism on the other, that 
made all this vast work necessary. From 
time to time Christianity was persecuted be- 
cause it was not understood, and the effort 
was early made to corrupt it. Two evils, 
then, had to be guarded against, and in 
nothing is the wise and patient spirit of 
our fathers of the faith more evinced than 
in the plan they adopted to avoid those evils. 
They would record the faith in sculpture, 
painting, and funeral tablets, and in such 
a way that all competent Christians could 
read it and no pagan spies or false brethren 
could portray it. Martyrdom itself is not 
more explicit in its testimony of the zeal 
and earnestness for the faith than in that 
painstaking, artistic labor which in times of 
persecution strove to express and record it 
in these monuments. For the Christian 
artist must work at great disadvantage, far 

110 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

underground, by the dim light of lanterns 
and torches; not for mere fame or wealth, 

but simply and solely to express the faith 
of the community to which he belonged; 
fundamental truth was the aim of it all, as 
Christ and His apostles taught it. In the 
light of these monuments we read confirma- 
tions of the teaching of the Christian writ- 
ers of the first four centuries ; and the pagan 
writers, from Pliny to Julian the Apostate, 
show us the necessity of their existence and 
the nature of the contest." 

Thus, then, Christian art, which art was 
destined to grow into the strongest and best, 
had its birth in the tomb. Its decorative 
vines, figures, and scenes seem to be the 
shroud of that tomb's impenetrable mys- 
teries ; and not until there comes the realiza- 
tion that it is all one vast symbolism, that 
every concept evolved from the painter's 
brush is a symbol to reveal a special teach- 
ing of the truth, is it all plain, and it cen- 
ters within itself an interest far exceeding 

111 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

that of any in the world's use of symbolical 
meanings. 

Symbolism. 

A symbol is a sign revealing a hidden 
meaning. Some idea, some truth is by it 
expressed in a visible form. A picture of 
a ship stands for the mere idea of a ship, 
or the picture could again be used sym- 
bolically, with a word description, as in 
Longfellow's poem, "The Ship of State." 
Both picture and words are symbols for 
ideas. 

From the earliest ages man has used 
symbolism — generally that of teaching ideas 
by means of pictures. Pictures took the 
place of inadequate language, or taught 
ideas to illiterates, who were not able to read 
language. To those educated in the use of 
symbols they do not appeal as a veil of 
mysteries, but rather as the revelation of a 
truth. As education and intelligence ad- 
vances, symbols to express a truth or a 
doctrine become less necessary. A symbol, 

112 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

unlike allegory, is simple, and may be read 
or interpreted by a glance. An all-wise Fa- 
ther first employed symbols in revealing di- 
vine truths to man, then paganism adopted 
the custom and veiled their dogmas in signs 
and symbols. 

But nowhere in history were such re- 
sources resorted to as in the advent of the 
Christian religion. Many circumstances 
made this necessary — the great mass of 
common people could only be taught divine 
truths in this way ; a picture would tell them 
everything, when once explained, where 
mere words would become incomprehen- 
sible. Again, symbols, signs, and watch- 
words could be used by Christians to dis- 
criminate true disciples from would-be im- 
postors; thus sprang up the large custom 
of drawing a fish to represent Christ, whose 
use served to identify others of the faith. 
St. Paul tells of certain circumcised Jews, 
who, for the sake of gain and their own 
belly, named themselves as true disciples. 

113 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

Hence arose one great symbol to distin- 
guish true from false — the Creed — "the 
faith of the Church," re-established after 
Christ by Paul as the standard of Christian 
truth, not written, but learned by heart, and 
set upon the lips as a watchword. 

To perpetuate this symbol of the creed, 
to preach it to converts, pictures and inscrip- 
tions were everywhere employed as multiple 
symbols of its many parts, and these early 
Christian teachings were piled up most pro- 
fusely in those subterranean labyrinths of 
the Catacombs. There those "symbols and 
inscriptions beam with radiant joy amid 
the gloom of death." It is this that makes 
the frescoed paintings on the walls of the 
Catacombs comprise the chief interest of 
the cemeteries. Natural instinct wrought 
out the decorated wall spaces of palaces 
and temples, and the walls of the tombs re- 
ceived their share from the painter's brush. 

What should a Christian find suitable 
for such a purpose? The intaglios of Kar- 

114 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

nak, the outlines of the Parthenaic friezes? 
Onty such style could be adopted in so far 
as it told of history in Biblical story, and 
the pictured Bible became the only need of 
giving the book to the people; for where 
was the Book except in treasured manu- 
scripts? and how many of the people could 
read if they possessed it? But the picture 
story could be read by all the untutored 
masses, and the divine truth involved in 
these painted symbols could thus easily be 
interpreted and applied as a sermon. 
Nearly the whole of the Old Testament 
cycle is there, supplemented by many scenes 
from the New, for the support and inspira- 
tion of that early faith. Whether the Chris- 
tian artist could draw the proper lines of 
the human body, or give the proper cast to 
a countenance, or get the perspective of a 
scene, made little difference. He knew as 
much of the canons of his art as did any 
other painter of his day, and he hesitated 
at nothing. Christian scruples, bred by the 

115 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

idolatrous nature of pagan art, being once 
overcome, there remained for the Christian 
artist but to repeat the fixed types once es- 
tabhshed. Yet pagan art had its influence, 
gradually allying itself with that of the 
Christian, and its treachery of innovation 
is strongly proved when the Pantheon of 
Rome, devoted with its art to Jupiter and 
all the gods, was dedicated to the Virgin 
Mary and all the saints. 

In catacomb frescoes the small things 
of nature are everywhere about. In those 
of St. Pretextatus the vault of the chapel 
is elaborately divided into four bands of 
wreaths: one of roses, another of corn 
sheaves, a third of vine leaves and grapes; 
in all birds are introduced, feeding their 
young in the nest; and above all are the 
leaves of the laurel or baytree, each wreath 
severally representing the four seasons. 
Since winter indicated death, and the laurel 
victory, we have here been taught the new 
Christian idea of a blessed immortality. 

116 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

The Cross. 

Purposeful it may seem, true it is that 
one of the most frequent and common signs 
seen everywhere in nature, engraved in the 
works of men, found alike in the stars and 
in the snowy crystals, meeting us in the mi- 
nute things of daily life, always in nature 
and art, and the one chosen hy the Father 
as the symbol of our great redemption — 
is the sign of the cross. 

Centuries before the crucifixion of our 
Lord the cross was used as a sacred symbol 
by heathen nations widely separated geo- 
graphically. Strange truth it may seem, 
but the use of the cross in pre-Christian 
heathenism referred either to the curse 
brought into the world by the fruit of the 
tree of knowledge or to that which would 
remove the curse, even the fruit of the tree 
of life, "the wood whereby righteousness 
cometh;" and thus it was always used either 
as the symbol of blessing, life, resurrection, 
immortality, or that of punishment and a 
» 117 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

curse, and punishment on the cross was 
known to all the ancient world. 

That the world principle of the cross has 
been dominant from earliest civilization is 
seen in every discovery in all quarters of 
the globe. Tradition has it that the mark 
that Cain received was the old (T) Tau 
Cross. Ancient Egypt used the cross with 
a handle ( -y- ) as the emblem of life, and it 
was seen in their paintings. Among the 
sculptures from Khorsabad, the ivories 
from Nimrod, is found the same "similar 
cross," and the Copts, the Persians, the In- 
dians (for the hooked cross is seen on as 
many objects of the north as it is found in 
the Vedaic religion, be they Indian tribes 
of Arctic region or those of Hudson Bay 
territory) , all had their "similar cross." The 
"tree of life" was worshiped by the Mexi- 
cans and other nations of Central America. 
The Scandinavians had great reverence for 
it, and we find ornaments decorated with the 
cross in their cemeteries and in the ancient 

118 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

Saxon cemeteries of Kent. The Druids se- 
lected the most beautiful forest tree, 
stripped all branches but two of special size, 
and performed their ceremonies under the 
shadow of the cross, and marked the bark 
of all their sacred trees with the Tau sign. 
In the unearthed remains of Troy, My cense, 
and at Cyprus we find the world-wide cross. 
If in some form the ancient pre-Chris- 
tian, pre-historic man of all the world, had 
some revelation as to the emblem of the 
cross, it remained for the Holy Scriptures 
to vindicate the truth of the one great Sac- 
rifice stretched out on that sacred tree. So 
in the Old Testament we have the cross pre- 
figured in many types. There is the true 
revelation as to the Tree of Life and its pre- 
figurement of the Cross, "whereon our 
Blessed Lord lifted up His hands as an 
evening sacrifice." We are indebted to 
Langhorne for pointing out these Old Tes- 
tament signs of the cross, in material, in 
form, and in action. In material we see 

119 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

Jacob's ladder as the cross, by means of 
which alone man can ascend to heaven; in 
the tree which sweetened the bitter waters 
of Marah, foreshadowing the cross which 
sweetened the poisoned and bitter waters of 
this world; in the rich grape cluster borne 
by the two spies. In form, we have the 
wood of the sacrifice borne across Isaac's 
shoulders and whereon he was laid, and in 
later ages our Lord, the true Isaac, was to 
bear His cross up that selfsame hill. The 
brazen serpent was lifted up on the cross- 
shaped pole, as the source of life and heal- 
ing. "As Moses uplifted the serpent in the 
wilderness, even so must the Son of man 
be lifted up." Then we have the Paschal 
Lamb pierced and roasted on a transverse 
spit, or cross. In action, there is that act 
of Jacob's in crossing his hands when he 
blessed the two sons of Joseph, "guiding 
his hands wittingly," and thus speaking of 
that cross which brings life and peace and 
blessing; the arms of Moses outstretched 

120 



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THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

until the going down of the sun, while Is- 
rael prevailed in battle. 

And so it appears of divine intention 
that the Christian, from apostolic times, 
should have adopted the cross as his most 
sacred symbol, the outward sign and profes- 
sion of his faith. They prayed with out- 
stretched arms, and did not speak nor sit, 
nor rise to walk, nor put on shoes, nor sit 
at table, nor go to battle, nor retire without 
making the sign of the cross. This passed 
on to public worship, and finally, what more 
could later disciples do than to build their 
cathedral churches in the form of the cross! 

Thus in the paintings on the walls of 
the Catacombs one of the commonest repre- 
sentations is of persons with uplifted hands, 
in the act of prayer, called Orontes, and 
probably indicating the devout character of 
the departed. 

The Tau (sometimes called the Egyp- 
tian) cross is found in the frescoes of St. 
Calixtus, and here it would probably not 

121 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

have been made earlier than the third cen- 
tury. 

There sprang up a special use for the 
sign of the cross. In the earliest inscrip- 
tions and monuments it became associated 
with the symbol recognized as the mono- 
gram of Christ, which monogram became 
frequent on burial monuments, ancient 
lamps, glass vessels, gems, and coins, and 
was afterwards adopted by Constantine as 
the sign on the shields and standards of 
his army. It is found in various forms, 
viz. : NP' , the oldest and most common, 
and found in St. Calixtus; and others, 

These are all universally conceded to be 
the initial letters of the name of Christ. 
The Church attached its deep significance 
as a conquering and all-prevailing name. 
The art of the Christians shows the change 
from the thought of humiliation and suf- 
fering to that of authority and power, and 
we find the monogram surrounded with 

122 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

garlands, palm branches, and in places of 
honor and dominion. Thus can be traced 
the beginning of the opinion respecting the 
power and office of Christ which afterwards 
clothed Him with the attributes of the se- 
vere and awe-inspiring judge. 

The tradition of finding the true cross 
by Helena, the mother of Constantine, has 
even less foundation than the vision of the 
cross by the emperor. This tradition of its 
discovery by Helena proved occasion for 
the most hurtful superstitions, which fos- 
tered the worship of relics and suggested 
the religious pilgrimages of following cen- 
turies, and hence the fruitless crusades. 

" The Cross, resign it never; 
The Cross, re-sign it ever." 

Minor Symbols. 

There are three kinds of symbols to be 
found in the Catacombs, exclusive of those 
supposed to belong to martyrdom; the first 

123 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

and by far the largest proportion of them 
refer to the Christian faith; the second, 
purely secular, indicate the trades of the 
deceased, found so often on the grave, or 
locula; while the third merely represent 
proper names. 

One becomes surprised at the multi- 
plicity of the symbols employed by those 
early Christians, and it can only be pos- 
sible in these limited pages to speak of a 
few. 

A most common sight was to see some 
person, probably of the most humble walks 
of life, engaged for a moment in drawing 
a fish. This might be with a stick in the 
soft earth, or on a bit of stone; and should 
any one be near who understood the sign, 
there would spring up a bond between the 
two, or among several, as with strange men 
belonging to the same order and meeting 
to-day. In the Greek word for fish, IX0Y2 
ichthus, each Greek character represents the 
initial letter in the Greek sentence, "Jesus 

124 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

Christ, Son of God, Savior." What more 
could be wished in a mystic word or sign? 
When the actual fish was used, its meaning 
was entirely concealed from the uninitiated, 
who made it a subject of derision and 
stumbling on their part. Another appro- 
priateness was given it. "The fish," ob- 
served Tertullian, "seems a fit emblem of 
Him whose spiritual children are like the 
offspring of fishes, born in the waters of 
baptism." (This does not indicate the prac- 
tice of immersion, which was not used 
then.) A secondary reference has been 
made to the parable of the net. The em- 
blematic power of the fish is stronger than 
the symbolic; emblematic of the figure of 
Christ in His divine presence and power, in 
that saving ordinance of holy baptism and 
of the holy communion. In the Talmud 
the Messiah is dialled "Dag;" i. e., fish. The 
Jews had prophetically connected His ad- 
vent with the time of conjunction of the 
planets Jupiter and Saturn in the constel- 

125 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

lation of fishes ; and Tirschmuth remarks on 
the madness, infatuation, and obstinacy of 
the Jews, that when that conjunction actu- 
ally took place they rejected Plim. 

The dove signifies peace with God; it 
often carries the olive branch either in beak 
or claws. 

The anchor is understood to signify the 
close of a well-spent life; the conclusion of 
a successful voyage, when the anchor is cast. 

A ship sailing was the Church, or a 
Christian voyaging heavenward. Peter re- 
ferred to the successful entrance of a ves- 
sel at port when he said, "So shall an en- 
trance be ministered to you abundantly." 

Actors' masks on sarcophagi show us 
that the ancient world was familiar with the 
idea of "all the world 's a stage." An ele- 
gant pagan inscription has this: "While I 
lived, I lived well. ]My drama is now ended, 
soon yours will be; farewell, and applaud 



me." 



The peacock, as an emblem of immor- 
126 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

tality, was another idea borrowed from the 
pagans. The phoenix was also adopted for 
this purpose by the Christians. 

Sheep and lambs represent disciples, 
often, on mural paintings of catacombs; 
sometimes cared for by the Good Shepherd, 
who leads them into green pastures, some- 
times around Him in attitude of earnest at- 
tention to hear the Master's teaching. 

The palm tree and branch, frequent on 
burial monuments, with primary reference 
to Rev. vii, 9, stand for triumph over death. 

The rod, signifying divine power, ap- 
pears in the hands of three persons, and 
three only : Christ, Moses, and Peter. Wm. 
Palmer gives a splendid interpretation of 
the rod. He refers us to the psalm, "The 
Lord shall send the rod of thy power out 
of Zion." He says, "The rod of Moses is 
the power of Christ, delegated to His serv- 
ant; the rock struck is Christ Himself, and 
what Moses did in the wilderness for the 
old Israel, Peter does for the new." So in 

127 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

the Christian paintings and sculptures, 
Moses striking the rock commonly repre- 
sents Peter. In the catacombs of Nereus 
and Achilles we see Christ with the rod 
touching the basket of natural meal to 
change it to spiritual. The spiritual appli- 
cation of the miracle was well known. 

The symbols of trade figured on grave- 
stones and were long regarded by antiqua- 
rians as the instruments of martyrdom by 
which the deceased suffered death. But 
such a mass of horrors as these would indi- 
cate and the combination of objects belong- 
ing to the same trade should have contra- 
dicted the superstition. We find pictured 
knives and mallets, adzes and saws; imple- 
ments of the wool gatherer, as shears, 
combs, etc., found on the tombstones of 
Adeodatus, now in the lapidarian gallery, 
and many others. 

Animals were often employed — the 
dragon, the ass, the pig, and the lion — sig- 
nifying the meaning in the names; as, for 

128 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

instance, above the drawing of a stiff little 
pig we have : 

Porcella hie dormit 

In P. Quixit ann. Ill M. X 

D. XIII. 

(Here sleeps Porcella in peace. She lived 
three years, ten months, and thirteen days.) 

That the pictures on the walls of the 
Catacombs were painted with a view of in- 
culcating Christian doctrines and teaching 
Bible history, and not merely for decora- 
tion, seems the only philosophical view to 
take of it, although there is a school of be- 
lievers for each of these views. The clergy 
have been called the real artists in their ex- 
ploiting a subject, while the executioners 
were mere artists. The figures, dress, and 
adornments are not widely different from 
prevailing pagan style; not only these ap- 
pear similar, but there were many pagan 
art subjects put to use by the Christians, 
and their symbols were not unlike. Several 
great critics point out the fact that it is as 

129 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

unhistorieal to sunder the symbols of early 
Christian funeral monuments from the con- 
temporary heathen burial monuments as to 
sunder the whole cycle of Christian art, the 
entire Christian civilization, even the very 
origin of Christianity, from its connection 
with the intellectual, aesthetic, and moral de- 
velopment of the non- Christian world; 
hence the relation seen in such illustrations 
as that of Christ as the Good Shepherd, of 
Orpheus, and of Mercury. 

Nevertheless, notwithstanding this close 
alliance of Christian and heathen art, the 
Christian had entirely an unique cycle of 
subject and thought, and there is to be seen 
in them a "spiritual depth to be distin- 
guished from the superficial beauty of pa- 
gan art." Old Testament subjects were as 
popular as the New, beginning with earli- 
est Biblical history, as the offering of Isaac 
in sacrifice by Abraham, each is clad in a 
simple tunic, praying with uplifted hands. 
Isaac and the lamb which stands near sig- 

130 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

nify the Lamb of God, Son of the Father, 
whose sacrifice is the propitiation for sin. 
The fagot of wood for the burnt offering 
is also seen. 

About the most interesting scene of Old 
Testament narratives is that of the Prophet 
Jonah, about 115 years before Christ and 
750 after Jonah; AjDollodorus alluded to a 
story invented long after that of the 
prophet's ; the tale of Andromeda bound to 
a rock in reach of a sea monster. Fable has 
it that this occurred at Joppa. Pliny tells 
of the bones of a monster brought to Rome 
from Joppa, the skeleton measuring forty 
feet in length, having a spine one and one- 
half foot thick, and ribs larger than those of 
an elephant. Such evidence is remarkable, 
and the fact stands that the history of Jonah 
was the most popular of all in the ancient 
Church and the most frequently represented 
in the Catacombs, presumably because it 
was viewed as the type of our Savior's death 
and resurrection. The idea of the resur- 

10 131 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

rection with them, as with all Christians, 
was the dearest to their hearts, even all the 
more impressive with them, spending so 
many gloomy hours in the presence of the 
dead, where only a slab separated the living 
from the dead. 

Jonah escaping from the whale (of 
death) and reclining beneath the gourd 
(heaven) , is everywhere seen scratched upon 
the walls and afterwards sculptured on sar- 
cophagi. In one composition from a tomb 
in the cemetery of St. Priscilla we see at the 
top a painting of Christ raising Lazarus, 
which was only another sign of a general 
resurrection. Below we see to the right the 
ship from which Jonah is being cast out; 
in the middle, a latticed arbor thickly 
covered by the leaves of the gourd, with 
Jonah under it, signifying the refreshment 
of the souls in paradise. Lastly, in the left 
corner we see him issuing from the mon- 
ster's jaws, for the resurrection. This, we 
see, is not the order of parts as in Bible his- 

132 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

tory, and the change has been made to illus- 
trate the Christian : first, scorched by the fire 
of persecution ; refreshed, may be, by a tem- 
porary intermission, and at last cast out of 
the ship by martyrdom, finally coming out 
of the jaws of the monster by resurrection. 
As regards the form of the monster, we 
need no archaeologist to tell us that "it was 
borrowed from the heathen house painters 
of Rome. Hell and death are represented 
by the form of a dragon with open jaws, 
from early ages downward. In the Greek 
ritual the fish of Jonah is called the wild 
beast, or sea monster, and of any form at 
all resembling that of a whale there is no 
trace." 

Quite another as striking and frequent 
representation is that of Noah and the ark. 
The myth of Ducalion was a familiar one 
to Roman minds ; it had been copied by the 
pagans from the history of Noah, was par- 
allel to the divine truth, and had been rep- 
resented in pagan decorations. So the early 

133 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

Christian artist borrowed its lines in sculp- 
ture and painting, and its truth took a 
powerful hold on Christian minds. And 
what is the picture we so frequently find? 
Notwithstanding the facts in the Biblical 
narrative, we find "the ark a mere box pro- 
vided with lid and lock: the family of the 
patriarch reduced to a single figure, and the 
animals altogether omitted. In all the 
painted copies these absurdities are stereo- 
typed." Sometimes the artist, in an attempt 
to escape the charge of copying, varies his 
picture by changing the attitude of Noah 
in the box and his manner of receiving the 
dove. 

Other subjects, as God preserving 
His people, were conspicuously displayed. 
They pictured Daniel safe before two harm- 
less lions, and made no representations of 
their brothers and sisters being destroyed 
by the rapacious beasts in the Coliseum. 
They tried to paint the three Hebrews in 

134 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, the artist 
struggling witli the terrible difficulty of the 
nude; but the victims of Neronian cruelty, 
wrapped in pitch-cloth and used as torches 
to illuminate the circus, were never deline- 
ated. Both the subjects of Daniel and of 
the Hebrew children are elaborated in the 
catacombs of St. Agnese. Above the two is 
centralized the figure of Christ, with two 
sheep at His feet, who as the "Shepherd and 
King of martyrs has drunk deeper than all 
the cup of suffering, and is able both to 
strengthen and reward those who do suffer; 
and the two sheep at His feet are the two 
apostles as martyrs, and in them all others." 
O, the inspiration of deepest truth to be 
found in such hieratic symbols! 

Next to the rite of baptism that of the 
mystical Supper of the Eucharist was the 
most sacred to the new believers, and such 
a feast we find often upon the walls. In 
the frescoes from St. Calixtus we have the 

135 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

"chamber of sacraments," where in a cen- 
tral group are seven men, disciples of 
Christ, seven signifying universality and 
acting as a reminder of Galilean shores, to 
whom Christ appeared after His resurrec- 
tion and invited them to dine on bread and 
broiled fish. The seven are seated at the 
table, with two fishes upon it, and seven 
baskets of loaves arranged below, reminding 
them of the miracle of the multiplication of 
the loaves. On the left of this is a three- 
legged table having on it bread and fish. 
A woman is at one side, in the attitude of 
prayer ; a man, opposite, clad in the pallium, 
is extending his hands, especially the right, 
toward the table as if to force the idea of 
consecration. 

The woman praying has been inter- 
preted as representing the Church, in the 
prevalent idea that those prayers are most 
acceptable when made with the consecrated 
gifts lying in open view. Such ingenuity, 

136 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

yet simplicity, of design is to be appreci- 
ated. The third scene, the sacrifice by Abra- 
ham, shows the idea of the supreme sacrifice 
already exploited. 

In 1865 De Rossi discovered what was 
then a new part of the cemetery of St. Do- 
matilla. Through a vestibule of severest 
classic style the visitor passes along a broad 
entrance, somewhat inclined, from which 
small chambers and side passages extend 
right and left. The ceilings contain paint- 
ings, which, for simplicity and naturalness, 
point to an origin prior to the decadence of 
Roman art. De Rossi places them at the 
time of Domatilla, the close of the first cen- 
tury. On the wall is a portion of a mu- 
tilated fresco, two persons sitting on a 
couch, before them a table with three loaves 
and a fish. This is a scene from the every- 
day life of the two buried in the chamber. 
Several such scenes are more or less con- 
spicuous. 

137 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

The Chief Representation of Christ. 

The most beautiful idea permeating civ- 
ilization, the idea of the Son of God as Di- 
vine Love coming to the earth, harmonizing 
all forces, revealing the brotherhood of 
man and the Fatherhood of God, and gath- 
ering all people into one flock under a ten- 
der Shepherd's care — this idea is carried out 
in the juxtaposition of such words as Hin- 
doos, Krishna, Greeks, Romans, Apollo, 
Orpheus, Hebrews, David, Christians, and 
Christ. There is no more beautiful thought 
than the relation of Shepherd and flock; 
and when Christ uttered these words, "I 
am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shep- 
herd giveth His life for His sheep," He is 
to be understood as summing up in Himself 
all the pagan and Jewish prophecies re- 
specting that divine oflice. 

Early Christian art was very slow and 
cautious in representing the divinity of our 
Lord in any human form, and all drawings 
were only of an ideal, never an actual por- 

138 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

trait. There is no such a thing as a true 
portrait of the Savior. For the first four 
centuries the Church preserved a traditional 
hkeness of the Lord and of Sts. Peter and 
Paul, and this may account for the simi- 
larity found in the representations of the 
former, which are generally of two types: 
one a beardless youth full of force and 
freshness, which representation is usually 
connected with His miracles, as in the mul- 
tiplication of loaves, the raising of Lazarus. 
The second type is bearded, more severe, 
with long, flowing hair; similar to this was 
the supposed earliest professed portrait of 
our Lord extant, which was found in a 
chapel in the cemetery of St. Calixtus and 
considered as belonging to the end of the 
fourth century. The Church of Rome has 
perpetrated many fables regarding por- 
traits of Christ as well as those of His 
mother, who, in spite of the efl'ort to trace 
the worship of her back to the earliest times, 
is not to be found in writings, paintings, 

139 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

nor sculptures till late in the fourth cen- 
tury, except when she appears merely as an 
accessory to the Divine Infant or in the 
Holy Family. Probably the oldest fresco 
of her is in St. Priscilla, of the first or early 
second century. She is early portrayed 
also with the Child in St. Domatilla and 
St. Agnese. The stupendous impiety of 
the actual worship of her comes later, when 
in the miserable change that passed over 
the spirit of Christendom, when social re- 
lations were so depreciated that anything 
honorable was held in contempt, and woman 
was treated as a being of inferior holiness; 
then it was that the worship of such a be- 
ing as the Virgin Mary came as a mighty 
balm, as a new religion, strange and sweet, 
and the error of her worship took such root 
that its actual blasphemy will remain with 
us a long time to come. 

So we must understand that all repre- 
sentations of Christ as the Good Shepherd 
are merely symbolical of His office, and none 

140 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

produce any lineaments of a true likeness. 
And the symbol was not new with the Chris- 
tians, for they were familiar with the Ram 
bearing Mercury, and the Satyr bearing a 
goat or sheep on his shoulders. The sheep 
and shepherd idea was very common among 
the most ancient people, and so with the 
Christians, in that we often meet the Good 
Shepherd in the Roman Catacombs. Here 
we have Him grave and sober, coming from 
afar with His staff and the lost sheep. 
Again, we have Him in a dancing, joyous 
attitude; and again we have Him, or 
Apollo, bearing a goat, and Mercury with 
a ram; the one as a typical bearer-away of 
sin, disease, and death, for the similar office 
of Orpheus, found in the well-known octa- 
gon picture in the Catacombs. We find 
Him always with His lyre, of which it had 
been said that "it is one powerful instru- 
ment to produce peace and harmony amid 
the tumultuous passions of the soul itself, 
as well as among the turbulent and savage 

141 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

natures, clashing interests, rival ambitions, 
and differences of opinion, religious and 
political. It is not the music of the lyre 
which does this, but that which the lyre 
symbolizes: the love of God and our neigh- 
bors; practicing no injustice, but to make 
music and gladness along the highway of 
nations." 

The Beautiful Symbol or the Vine. 

In the oldest catacombs of them all, 
St. Domatilla, of the first century, which 
give the evidence of St. John's Gospel, 
virtually proving not only the existence of 
its author, but also "the Author and Fin- 
isher" of St. John's faith, we have as fre- 
quent and common that most significant of 
symbols, the painted grape-vine. And we 
know that the first act of the Master's hand 
was at Cana, of Galilee, in striking the true 
note of Christianity when He turned the 
insipid water of earth into the wine of 
heaven. The symbol of the vine so contin- 

142 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

ually employed by the Christians is found 
in many catacomb frescoes. It is some- 
times entwined gracefully about with flit- 
ting birds among its branches, and rich, ripe 
fruit encircles the wall spaces. 

There have been many beautiful things 
said about the symbolical vine, and we can 
do no more than quote the interpretations 
of learned scholars. As the vine drinks in 
the dews of heaven and sucks up the earth's 
moisture, and transfers these by aid of the 
sunlight and heat into purple clusters of 
luscious fruit that can be pressed into nour- 
ishing wine, so the Divine Logos, or Son 
of God, through His incarnation absorbs, 
transforms, and recreates all human and 
earthly things, turning our sorrows into 
joys, our discord into harmony, our strife 
into peace, our sin into holiness, our world 
itself Mnto heaven. It was this quality of 
the vine, doubtless, that prompted the si- 
militude of Christ when He said, "I am 
the vine, ye are the branches." 

143 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

One authority, who has paid special at- 
tention to the subject, has said: "The vine 
has been in all ages regarded as the nat- 
ural emblem of wisdom; sophia, the Greek 
word for wisdom, meaning originally the 
juice of the grape; hence the fruit of the 
vine represents intellectual fruit, the prac- 
tical result of the understanding." 

"Christ is the wisdom of God unto sal- 
vation as self -existent and self -sustained in 
the bosom of the Father before even the 
earth was. His best type is the palm tree; 
but as incarnate for our redemption and as 
Son of man, He is the vine clinging round 
the Father's neck for support in the sense 
that He is the real or true vine of God's 
planting, yielding fruit to His glory; our 
poor, imperfect humanity is not like that 
true vine : it yields only sour grapes, and 
must be grafted into the true vine to be im- 
proved. It is, therefore, in this double sense 
of divine wisdom and perfect humanity that 
Christ is likened to the vine by St. John, 

144 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

and it is precisely in this double sense that 
early Christian art used the vine as a figure 
of our Lord and Savior." 

Some went so far as to associate the idea 
of the drunkenness of Noah with the pas- 
sion of Christ, who asked that the cup might 
pass from Him. The nakedness of Noah 
representing the weakness of Christ in His 
sufferings, as the apostle says, "He was 
crucified through weakness;" wherefore the 
same apostle says, "The weakness of God 
is stronger than men, and the foolishness of 
God is wiser than men." 

And so Christ "would drink anew wine 
with His disciples in His Father's king- 
dom," as emblematic of the joys to be had 
there forever. No wonder, then, the primi- 
tive Church in the days of her oppression 
and sadness rejoiced in the weekly cele- 
bration of the Agape and the Eucharist, 
and painted and carved the vine in her 
places of worship. The wine of Christ's 
blood was medicine to her soul, which made 

145 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

her forget her poverty and remember her 
misery no more. Christ, her Lord, had been 
trodden in the winepress of wrath, hke the 
newly gathered clusters of the vintage, in 
order that His love might fill the cup of sal- 
vation for her, and our dry and parched 
lips. Every time the sacramental cup is 
tasted we remember the words, "I am the 
vine, ye are the branches," "I am the true 
vine, and My Father is the husbandman," 
as not only a reminder, but also as a pledge 
of all future joy and gladness; when earth 
shall be exchanged for heaven, and all its 
water turned into wine; when the whole 
Church, redeemed out of mankind as the 
bride of Christ, shall lift up her beaming 
chalice brimming over with bliss, and say 
to the Bridegroom, "Thou hast kept the 
good wine until now." 

And so they sleep; for no unholy hands 
can disturb their repose. Who can count 
the aisles of numberless graves — some dar- 
ing to say a thousand miles form the streets 

146 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ART 

of the city of the dead — who dare estimate 
the miUions of souls but their Creator, with 
whom they are now chanting the eternal 
song, "Thou hast kept the good wine until 
now!" And so we let them lie — 

''In Pace repositusf' 

While in our mortality we climb once 
more the ancient marble stairs, always sa- 
cred to their Christian feet, and emerge 
once more out on the Campagna — La Ca^ni- 
PAGNA Di Roma — the music of the words — 
poets, historians, scientists, and travelers 
of every clime have vibrated with the 
rhythm, have sought to explore and explain 
the mystery, and still the rays of the Italian 
sun form a halo to crown an area of miracle ; 
for without the walls of the Eternal City 
still stretch fields of Elysian lore, and within 
their lengthening space, where villas rose 
up, where marbles were torn from Nature's 
bowels and reset again, and yet again; 
there, where a strange, beautiful roadway 

147 



THE STORY OF THE CATACOMBS 

unfolded its miles of avenue; there, where 
life played its tragedies and comedies with 
emperors and slaves, all, on this magic car- 
pet of this living green; and there, where 
Almighty Power, as if in contrast to that 
displayed by earth's petty rulers, chose to 
establish His monumental evidence; there 
— they sleep! 



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